SCOPE OF IMPROVING MECHANICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF CONCRETE USING NATURAL FIBER AS A REINFORCING MATERIAL

Using natural (Jute) fiber in concrete as a reinforcing material can not only augment the concrete strength but also restrict the use of synthetic fiber which is environmentally detrimental. To achieve this goal, this study evaluated compressive strength, tensile strength and plastic shrinkage of concrete incorporating ‘Natural (Jute)’ fiber of different length (15 mm and 25 mm) with various mix proportions of 0.10%, 0.2%, 0.3% and 0.4% respectively by volume of concrete. Concrete is vulnerable to grow shrinkage cracks because of high evaporation rate in dry and windy conditions. Incorporating of fibers could abate development of this crack. The large length (25 mm) and higher content ( 0.3%) of reinforcing materials (jute fiber) result to the lowering of mechanical properties of JFRC compare to plain concrete. But in the incorporation of short (15 mm) and low fiber content ( 0.3%), enhances the mechanical properties of the same JFRC. Inclusion of 0.3% (15 mm length) fiber gave maximum enhancement of both concrete compressive and tensile strength by 12.4% and 58% respectively compared to the non-fiber reinforced concrete. A drastic suppression of crack occurrence and area of crack between non-fiber reinforced concrete and fiber reinforced concretes was attained. Experimental results of incorporating 0.1–0.4% fiber with 15 mm length in concrete revealed that plastic shrinkage cracks were decreased by 75–99% in contrast to non-fiber reinforced concrete. Therefore, it is concluded that the incorporation of jute fiber in making FRC composite would be one of the favorable methods to enhance the performance of concrete.