Behavior of Non-Shear-Strengthened UHPC Beams under Flexural Loading: Influence of Reinforcement Depth

This study was carried out in order to study the flexural behavior of fiber-reinforced ultra-high-performance concrete (UHPC) containing hybrid microsteel straight fibers and natural fine aggregates under four-point flexural loading. The experimental results revealed that the fiber pullout mechanism had a progressive pullout (collapse) mode. A highly flexural crack developed when the fiber pulling mechanism was explicitly triggered, leading to the failure of most beams. The maximum load in beams reinforced by 1.2, 1.6, and 2.0% exceeded that in beams without longitudinal reinforcement by 56, 73, and 94%, respectively. Further, bar reinforcements at 125, 115, 95, 85, and 75 mm depths led to increases of 56, 55, 73, 96, and 94% in beam load capacity, respectively. In addition, bar reinforcement at 115, 95, 85, and 75 mm depths reduced the beams’ ductility by 40, 23, 35, and 39% compared to those with 125 mm depth. All studied UHPC beams had an uncracked phase that extended to a curvature of about 7.5 × 10−6 rad, which occurred at about 10 kNm. The use of the design of experiments was exploited in this investigation to develop a prediction model for the ultimate moment capacity of UHPC beams. This prediction model took into account the sectional and material properties of UHPC beams. To carry out this analysis, a database of 25 beams, developed by other investigators, as well as the present authors, was utilized. With a mean prediction-to-test ratio of 0.92, this prediction model had a reasonable performance capacity. In turn, this model was used to generate isoresponsive surface contours that could be used for UHPC beam design.

Additive manufacturing of strong silica sand structures enabled by polyethyleneimine binder

Binder Jet Additive Manufacturing (BJAM) is a versatile AM technique that can form parts from a variety of powdered materials including metals, ceramics, and polymers. BJAM utilizes inkjet printing to selectively bind these powder particles together to form complex geometries. Adoption of BJAM has been limited due to its inability to form strong green parts using conventional binders. We report the discovery of a versatile polyethyleneimine (PEI) binder for silica sand that doubled the flexural strength of parts to 6.28 MPa compared with that of the conventional binder, making it stronger than unreinforced concrete (~4.5 MPa) in flexural loading. Furthermore, we demonstrate that PEI in the printed parts can be reacted with ethyl cyanoacrylate through a secondary infiltration, resulting in an increase in flexural strength to 52.7 MPa. The strong printed parts coupled with the ability for sacrificial washout presents potential to revolutionize AM in various applications including construction and tooling.

Influence of microfillers addition on the flexural properties of carbon fiber reinforced phenolic composites

The effects of microfiller addition on the flexural properties of carbon fiber reinforced phenolic (CFRP) matrix composites were investigated. The CFRP was produced using colloidal silica and silicon carbide (SiC) microfillers, 2 D woven carbon fibers, and two variants of phenolic resole (HRJ-15881 and SP-6877). The resins have the same phenol and solid content but differ in their viscosities and HCHO (formaldehyde) content. The weight fractions of microfillers incorporated into the phenolic matrix are 0.5 wt.%, 1 wt.%, 1.5 wt.%, and 2 wt.%. Flexural properties were determined using a three-point bending test and the damage evolution under flexural loading was investigated using optical and scanning electron microscopy. The results indicated that the reinforcement of phenolic resins with carbon fibers increased the flexural strength of the HRJ-15881 and SP-6877 by 508% and 909%, respectively. The flexural strength of the CFRP composites further increased with the addition of SiC particles up to 1 wt.% SiC but decreased with further increase in the amount of SiC particles. On the other hand, the flexural modulus of the CFRP composites generally decreased with the addition of SiC microfiller. Both the flexural strength and flexural modulus of the CFRP did not improve with the addition of colloidal silica particles. The decrease in flexural properties is caused by the agglomeration of the microfillers, with colloidal silica exhibiting more tendency for agglomeration than SiC. The fractured surfaces revealed fiber breakage, matrix cracking, and delamination under flexural loading. The tendency for failure worsened at microfiller addition of ≥1.5 wt.%.