Influence of High Performance Hybrid Polyvinyl AlcoholPolyproplene Fibres on Mechanical Properties of Oil Palm Shell Lightweight Concrete

Abstract

The mechanical properties of oil palm shell (OPS) lightweight concrete (LWC) reinforced with high performance of polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) fibre and polypropylene (PP) fibres were investigated in this study. The influence of single PVA fibre, single PP fibre and hybrid PVA-PP fibre with different volume fraction on the compressive strength, flexural load-extension curve and water absorption of OPS LWC were investigated. The test results indicate that, the strength of OPS LWC reinforced with single PVA fibre or PP fibre improved with the increase of fibre content. However, the compressive strength and water absorption enhances slightly, while the flexural strength improved significantly. When the two types of fibres are mixed into OPS LWC simultaneously, the results show positive and negative of synergy effects. The positive synergy effect of hybrid 0.25% PVA and 0.035% PP had showed the optimum results as compared to different volume fraction of mixes. It shows that, compressive strength and flexural strength increased by 5.5% and 22.1% respectively, while the water absorption decreased 23.1% compared with those of OPS LWC without fibres. Hence, the findings of this paper revealed that the combination with both high performance polymeric fibres can be used to develop more sustainable building materials.