Concrete is a ubiquitous building material with an extensive history, yet it has notable limitations. Its sizeable environmental impact, low tensile to compressive strength ratio, and lack of durability leave room for innovation. Concrete durability frames the motivation for this research.
This paper presents the motivation, methods, and findings of tests performed to quantify the durability of concrete reinforced with automatically shrinking, chitosan-based fibers. A literature review, the procedures used for synthesizing chitosan fibers, and preliminary tests of the control fibers are all discussed.
Durability is characterized with a rapid freezing and thawing test. Freeze-thaw damage is a recurrent form of weathering and is a significant cause of concrete damage.
From the freeze-thaw test, 1 wt% shrinking (active) fiber reinforced concrete had a 198.3% average increase in durability factor over non-shrinking (passive) fiber reinforced concrete and a 251.4% average increase over non-reinforced concrete.
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