Tensile and compressive strength of polyethylene engineered cementitious composite (PE-ECC) at elevated temperature
Fardin Mahmoudi, Jamal A. Abdalla, Rami A. Hawileh, Zhigang Zhang
Abstract
The fire performance of engineered cementitious composites (ECC) made with polyethylene (PE) fibers has not been addressed extensively in the literature. Therefore, this study’s main objective is to investigate the residual compressive and tensile properties of PE-ECC specimens after high-temperature exposures. The compression cube samples were heated up to 400 °C, and the tensile specimens were exposed to sub-elevated temperatures up to 120 °C. After the samples were heated, they were allowed to cool down naturally to room temperature. During the heating process, no explosive spalling was observed. Cube specimens exposed to the temperature of 200 °C, maintained almost all the compressive strength of unheated specimens. The compressive strength of the samples heated to the temperature of 400 °C, was almost 60% of that of the control ones. All the tensile dogbone specimens at different temperature exposures showed strain-hardening and multiple cracking behaviors. At 80 °C, the tensile strength of dogbone specimens was increased by 13% and then decreased by 10% at 120 °C compared to the control unheated specimens.