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THE EFFECT OF PALM FIBRE ASH AS AN ADDICTIVE IN CONCRETE

ABSTRACT

The effect of palm fibers on the absorption and mechanical properties of hardened concrete is presented in this paper. To achieve this aim, four concrete mixes were prepared with varying amount of fibers. The volume of fiber in the mix is 0%, 0.5%, 1% and 1.5%. The water to cement ratio for all mixes is kept constant. Five tests were performed for each concrete mixtures: ultrasonic pulse velocity, compressive strength, density, sorptivity and total water absorption. Concrete were cured for 3, 7, 28 and 90 days. Results indicated that acceptable concrete quality can be achieved with the addition of palm fibers. On the other side, the inclusion of palm fibers reduces the compressive strength up to 30% on average and the density by 4% as the percentage of fibers increases from 0% to 1.5%. In addition, the capillary water absorption coefficient and total absorption increase with the increase of palm fibers but decreases significantly with curing durations.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

The construction industry is considered a major sector in many countries around the world, including Lebanon. Unfortunately, this industry shares responsibility in depleting large amount of non-renewable resources and for 30% of carbon dioxide emissions (1). Therefore, many local agencies are urging the construction industry to use renewable resources to attain a more sustainable consumption pattern of construction materials. This is now apparent from the research conducted in the last few decades where waste and recycled products were used in concrete production (254)

Concrete is widely considered the most used materials in construction. However, It has low tensile strength and low ductility. The concrete-steel reinforced bars combination is needed to overcome those disadvantages. However, steel which is derived from a nonrenewable source is an expensive material. It has high energy consumption and a tendency to corrode with time as concrete permeability increases during its life time. To compensate those shortcomings and for environment protection purposes, natural fibers have been proposed by materials engineers as a possible replacement for steel in construction works. A distinctive property of natural fibers concrete composite are improved bending and tensile strength, greater resistance to cracking and consequently, better strength and toughness (55). Researchers have tried in the past decade different types of natural fibers such as sisal, jute, rice husk, flax, bamboo, banana fiber, oil palm fiber and date palm fibers (56,57). Although few previous studies provided promising results, there are still concerns regarding natural fibers high variation properties which could possibly lead to unpredictable concrete properties such as durability and strength, etc. (58-61). A major problem in using natural fibers is that the fibers present in an alkaline environment will decompose over time. Thus, concrete matrix loses its strength, leading to a sudden brittle failure. For this reason, chemical treatment of natural fibers before introducing it to the mixture is necessary (62,63).

In this study, the focus is on the fan palm fibers (FPF) as it seems more suitable for exploitation. It was shown in a previous work that FPF in a 4% sodium hydroxide for 24 hours was the preferred treatment procedure as it yielded the highest tensile strength (59-63). In a subsequent study focusing on the effect of using FPF on the mechanical properties and durability of concrete, it was found that the compressive strength was not affected with the addition of low percentage of fibers. On the other hand, the resistance to plastic shrinkage cracking increased significantly with the addition of FPF and the optimum fiber percentage was found at 1.5% (61-63). A more recent experimental study investigated the effect of FPF on concrete durability exposed to severe environments (sea water and magnesium sulfate). Results confirmed the beneficial effect of FPF as it reduces length concrete variation between 18% and 42% yielding volume stability of the composite (60,61).

This paper is a continuation of a previous work on FPF with specific focus on its effect on the absorptions and mechanical properties of concrete. Results of this investigation are expected to pave the road for utilizing these natural materials in local construction to achieve a sustainable composite.

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