With the development of infrastructures in Rwanda, the roads construction has been one of busiest area, and as the country counts thousands hills the design and construction of drainage systems required a great attention. Most of road drainage channels are covered with concrete plates that are reinforced with ordinary steel bars, while others are not covered due to the high cost of reinforced concrete plates. As the majority of these plates are only subjected to light pedestrian loads, they should be reinforced accordingly. This study was intended to check the potentials of sisal fibres from Agave Sisalana’ cactus plant which has shown good results in flexural members, as plates reinforcements. At first the quality of ordinary concrete components was checked. Then some of sisal fibres were prepared, manufactured into ropes of 10 mm diameter and then used as replacements of main steel bars in concrete plates before their tensile capacity was checked. Other pieces of sisal fibres of 5 cm length were mixed in concrete mass with different percentages of 0.5%, 1% and 1.5% of concrete volume. Test results showed that the compressive, tensile and flexural strengths for concrete with 1% of sisal fibres were more adequate for M30 concrete and therefore able of sustaining the real loads applied to the drainage concrete cover plates. As the performance of natural sisal fibres depends on fibres treatment methods, length, and type of required concrete, further studies on the use of sisal fibres should consider those factors.
Keywords: Agave sisalana, drainage channel, Reinforced Concrete, Sisal Fibres, Sisal ropes.
Experimental investigation on the potentials of Sisal Fibres as Reinforcements for Drainage Concrete Cover Plates
