Tensile Behaviors of Textile Grid–Reinforced Engineered Geopolymer Composites

Abstract

This paper presents a study of the tensile behaviors of textile grid–reinforced engineered geopolymer composites (TR-EGCs) using both experimental and numerical methods. EGC is a novel ecofriendly fiber-reinforced geopolymer composite that exhibits ultrahigh ductility under tensile loading conditions. In this paper, the ambient cured EGC with local polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) fiber was designed and the mechanical behaviors of the EGC were investigated. Direct tensile tests of TR-EGC specimens were conducted and compared with those of conventional textile-reinforced mortar (TRM). It was found that the load-carrying capacity of TR-EGC with carbon fabric was 5.72 times greater than that of TRM. The influences of alkali concentrations and textile types on the tensile behaviors of TR-EGC are discussed. It was found that the increase of alkali concentration is beneficial to the tensile strength of EGC and TR-EGC. In contrast, the tensile ductility decreased gradually as the alkali concentration increased from 4 to 12 mol/L. A finite-element (FE) model is proposed to model the tensile behaviors of TR-EGC specimens, which was verified using the experimental results. Because the current calculation method significantly underestimated the composite behaviors of the EGC and the inner textile, a new calculation method is proposed. It was found that the proposed calculation method is more accurate in predicting the tensile load–carrying capacity of TR-EGC, although more experiments and numerical analyses with in-depth discussions still need to be conducted.