الفهرس | Only 14 pages are availabe for public view |
Abstract Ferrocement is one of the relatively new cementitious composite considered as a construction material. It is a thin, lightweight composite material which has layers of steel meshes as the tensile reinforcement encased by cement mortar. These panels possess high strength-weight ratio and extreme bending ability. However, due to the small thickness and labor intensive production method of the panel, they are not accepted worldwide, which gave rise to the concept of ferrocement composite plates, which frequently used in modern lightweight construction due to their low thermal conductivity and high strength-to-weight ratio. Ferrocement composite plates typically consist of two thin, high strength and density outside face sheets known as skin separated by a thick layer made of low strength and density material called core. One type of core material called (Styrofoam) was employed to provide the core material between the two skin ferrocement layers which has density 33 kg/m3 and 20mm thick. Twelve ferrocement composite plates which having the dimension of 500 x 500 and 50 mm thick were cast and tested simply supported along its four sides and subjected to central flexural loadings until failure to determine the behavior of the composite plates under flexure loads. The main objective of this work is to study the effect of using different number of wire mesh layers and steel bars on the flexural strength of ferrocement composite plates. Increasing the number of welded and expanded steel mesh layers in the ferrocement composites delaying the occurrence of the first cracking as result of increasing the specific surface area of steel meshes, which leading to higher bond area. A simple computer program was used to predict the behavior of these plates. The experimental test results were analyzed and compared with the theoretical investigation . The obtained results reached emphasized good deformation characteristics, high ultimate load, high ductility, energy absorption properties could be used with great economic advantages. |