Development of composite cement reinforced with coconut fibre

Abstract

This research was conducted to develop cement composite with the addition of coconut fibre in cement panel. The raw materials used were Ordinary Portland cement, coconut fibre, sand and water. The development of cement composites in this research were done by substituting coconut fibre to the portion of sand based on the ratio of cement to sand. In this study, the ratios used to design the mixture were 1:1:0, 1:0.97:0.03, 1:0.94:0.06, 1:0.91:0.09, 1:0.87:0.12 and 1:0.84:0.15 (cement: sand: coconut fibre). The amount of water per cement ratio was fixed at 0.55 for each mixture ratio. The sizes of sample tested were, 160 mm x 40 mm x 40 mm for compression test, and 100 mm x 100 mm x 40 mm for density, moisture content and water absorption tests. The samples were cured in water for 7, 14, and 28 days. The result shows that the cement composite with 9 wt. % of coconut fibre gives highest flexural and compressive strength. It was found that by increasing the content of coconut fibre, the density of cement composite was decreased while the water absorption and the moisture content percentages were increased. This study also reports the fracture behaviour of composites after flexural test. It revealed the crack bridging had strengthened the composite.