Physical and mechanical properties of coir fiber reinforced concrete

Abstract

Economical and affordable are things consider to in the design and construction of structures in a building. Industrial of fibers could be considered as a good solution to enhance the structural ability of concrete. This research describes the use of content of coir fiber to the properties of concrete. Coir fiber is used to be investigated due to its high toughness as compared to the others natural fiber. The physical and mechanical properties of plain concrete and coir fiber reinforced concrete (CFRC) were investigated with five different contents of fiber which is 0.5%, 1.0%, 1.5%, 2.0% and 2.5% by mass of cement. The length of coir fiber used in this research is in range 3 to 5cm. The physical properties of concrete were obtained by test of workability of fresh concrete and density of hardened concrete. The addition of coir fiber with 5% by mass of cement reduces the degree of workability and densities of concrete were obtained in this research. On the other hand, the mechanical properties of concrete were obtained by compressive strength and flexural strength test. The compressive strength results which is was slightly improved due to the 1.0% (20.51 MPa) addition of coir fiber, while addition of coir fiber with 2.5% (5.70 MPa) by mass of cement improved the flexural strength by about 4% as compared to plain concrete. Overall the study has demonstrated that addition of coir fiber to concrete leads to improvement of concrete in compressive and flexural strength.