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Dora Foti
Politecnico di Bari
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Composite Structures
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/compstruct
Use of recycled waste pet bottles bers for the reinforcement of concrete
Dora Foti
Polytechnic of Bari, Department ICAR, Via Orabona, 4 70125 Bari, Italy
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Article history:
Available online 9 October 2012
Keywords:
Waste PET bottles
Fiber-reinforcement
Concrete ductility and durability
a b s t r a c t
In the present paper the results of some tests performed on concrete specimens reinforced with bers
made from waste polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles are reported. The bers have been obtained
by simply cutting the bottles; the bers are then added to the mix concrete or they are used as discrete
reinforcement of specimens and little beams in substitution of steel bars. The tests are to be considered as
an approach to a more extensive investigation on the use of PET as a reinforcing material for concrete and
masonry structures. The results that have been obtained are very interesting, especially regarding the
adherence between PET and concrete, suggesting a possible use of this material in the form of at or
round bars, or networks for structural reinforcement.
2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
The problem of recycling waste materials of various kinds, is,
and will be, undoubtedly, one of the problems that will most afict
the society in the future and that we must address and resolve in
all possible ways.
It is necessary that the researchers will nd solutions also original, imaginative and brilliant to the reuse of the waste. With the
scarcity of space for landlling and due to an ever increasing cost,
the attention is towards the reuse of waste as alternative to disposal. Research is always more interested in the use of such products in the concrete mix [1]. This makes the concrete more
economic and, at the same time, there is a reduction of the problem
of the waste.
In the literature there are many applications of plastics for
structural materials [2,3]. The development of these new materials
utilizing recycled plastics is important both for building and plastic
recycling industries. Of course these new materials should be subjected to testing before practical application.
Plastics are largely utilized and therefore contribute to an ever
increasing of the solid waste volume. Among the plastic waste,
polyethylene forms the largest fraction, followed by polyethylene
terephthalate, most known as PET. The last is obtained in large
quantity from plastic bottles utilized as containers of beverages
and mineral water.
In Table 1, a description of PET and its more common uses are
reported.
Nowadays, unfortunately, the recycling rate of PET bottles is
much less than the sales of virgin PET production for common uses.
Tel.: +39 080 5963771; fax: +39 080 5963719.
E-mail address: d.foti@poliba.it
0263-8223/$ - see front matter 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compstruct.2012.09.019
This gap is dramatically increasing, pushing towards nding a solution of this problem and a higher recycle of PET.
Particular interest is stirring, at present, the use of bers obtained from waste PET bottles. A possible application is to utilize
PET bers as reinforcement for concrete to improve its tensile
strength. Concrete, as it is known, is a material with good compressive strength but low tensile strength. This reduced tensile
strength is partly due to the presence of micro and macro cracks
caused by shrinkage of the concrete.
In recent decades, with the aim of giving the conglomerate a
greater tensile strength, it was attempted to add in its mixture bers of various types. The presence of bers improves the tensile
behavior of concrete thanks to the sewing effect that they have
on the cracks [4]. Their action, in fact, is more effective in the
post-cracking phase, preventing and reducing the propagation of
cracks. Concretes with a higher ductility and a reduced shrinkage
cracking are obtained [5]. Ductility is evidenced by a large deformation associated with the ber elongation at break. Unfortunately, the desired results were achieved only to a minor extent.
A drawback, in fact, is the reduced workability of concrete when
adding bers, so that only a reduced quantity of bers could be
added (maximum about 1% by weight of concrete) to get a material
that can be still workable to ll the formworks.
It is also known that, even for reinforced concrete, in the rst
phase the compressive and tensile stresses are primarily absorbed
by the concrete. When the load increases, the concrete cracks increase and the reinforcement in the cracked sections performs its
function, absorbing all the tensile stresses itself. Therefore, with
the aim to avoid or at least delay the appearance of cracks in
the structures, it is important not only to employ conglomerates
of greater compressive strength and, consequently, also of tensile
strength, but to try to limit the occurrence of macro or micro
397
Description
Polyethilene
terephthalate (PET)
398
Fig. 2. (a) Test set-up for the characterization of the bers; and (b) forceelongation plot of the tensile test on one ber.
Table 2
Mechanical characteristics of different bers for FRC.
Fiber type
Steel
Glass
Polypropylene
Nylon
Carbon
Acrylic
5500
915
20200
9
18
7.84
2.60
0.90
1.10
1.90
1.18
200,000
70,00080,000
50007000
4000
230,000
14,00019,500
5002000
20004000
500750
900
2600
4001000
0.53.5
23.5
8
1315
1
3
399
Fig. 4. Loading test on specimens with annular bers and detail of the crack.
drop of the load is about 70% respect to the cracking load for PET
0.50%, 55% for PET 0.75% and about 35% for PET 1%. The results conrm, as expected, that in case of PET 1%, the bers are present in
quantities larger than in the other tested specimens and take up
more easily the load transfered by the cracked concrete.
A measure of the ductility of the different types of concrete is
evaluated through the following coefcient:
lD
Du
Dy
400
Fig. 7 shows the peak values of the applied load, Pmax. However,
it must be noticed that specimens with 1% by weight of PET bers
have been prepared with a different concrete mix.
Table 3 shows the characteristics of the concrete mixtures utilized to make the specimens with different PET percentages.
2.2. Test (2): Specimens reinforced with half-bottles of PET
Thereafter, considering the high tensile strength of PET (of the
order of 160 N/mm2) it was decided to switch from the use of short
strips or circular bers utilized as diffuse reinforcement in the
concrete, to the use of large strips, obtained from half PET bottles,
disposed along the side of the 100 100 400 mm concrete specimens that would be subjected to tensile stresses.
Table 3
Components of the concrete mixtures.
Fig. 5. Loaddeformation plot on specimens with circular bers (1%, 0.75% and
0.5%).
Fibers (wt.%)
Concrete Portland
+ Aggregate (kg)
Superplasticizers
(wt.%)
Water
(l)
24
25
0.8
2.8
2.7
43
1.4
3.0
Fig. 6. Values of lD for the three different ber contents. Laminated brous
reinforcement.
Fig. 7. Peak load at cracking for three different ber contents. Positioning of the
brous reinforcement.
401
has been cut longitudinally into two equal parts to obtain strips
having a C section, with a base equal to about 8 cm and two side
elevations of about 4 cm. These strips were assembled using the
variation in section of the bottles and subsequently, after an appropriate overlap, xed together with staples. The reinforcement consisted of four of the abovementioned elements and therefore, at the
bottom and the middle of the specimens to be tested, there were
four layers of PET, each of a thickness of 0.2 mm, while in the side
sections there are only two layers (Figs. 8 and 9).
Two specimens have been made as described in the following:
rst it was realized a thin layer of concrete on which the reinforcing elements were lying and, subsequently, the empty side was
lled with concrete up to the complete saturation of the formwork.
The main purpose of the tests described hereinafter is to assess
the adhesion between PET and concrete and the attitude of the
strips of PET to behave similarly to concentrate reinforcement.
Therefore a standard test was performed on the specimens up to
a maximum deection of 20 mm (Fig. 10).
The crack pattern shown at the end of the tests is extremely
interesting. In fact, unlike the specimens reinforced with circular
bers, which detects a single vertical cracking concentrated in
the middle and sewn by the bers, in the specimens reinforced
with PET half bottles, after the appearance of a rst vertical crack
in the middle, inclined shear cracks appeared and subsequently
the detachment of the bottom area occurred while continuing to
exist a good adhesion between concrete and PET strips (Fig. 11ac).
The loaddeection plots, in addition to the peak in correspondence of the crack, then showed a fairly hardening trend with a
subsequent recovery of the load and increase of the deformation.
The tests have shown, therefore, the possibility of using strips of
PET as concentrate reinforcement for structures, or secondary
structural elements. PET bers, in fact, not only confer a certain
402
Fig. 14 shows the energy dissipated during the bending test for
each specimen. It is possible to notice the large amount of energy
dissipated if compared to the beam without bers.
The highest value of energy dissipation is obtained for specimens 3 and 4. This result was quite expected as the latter show
a more ductile behavior with displacements higher than 12 mm.
Fig. 15 shows the amount of energy dissipated at a displacement of 6 mm in the centerline of each specimen.
This plot indicates the specimen with the fastest recovery of
load from concrete to the PET bers. It could be attributed to beam
3, even if the energy dissipated is more or less the same: it is almost 3035% higher if compared to the total energy dissipated
by the not-reinforced specimen.
Fig. 16 shows the crack pattern of a beam reinforced with PET
strips.
Fig. 13. Loaddeection plot for little beams reinforced with PET sheets.
403
Fig. 17. Maximum applied load at cracking for the little beam specimens.
Fig. 17 shows the values of the rst cracking load for the four
PET reinforced beams and for the unreinforced beam. The peak
loads are not so different: they range from 8.88 kN to 10.95 kN.
In this case, as expected, it occurred that up to cracking of the concrete (which was also in a sudden manner) the stresses have been
absorbed, predominantly, by the concrete. Only in the post-peak
phase the strips of PET acted to absorb the tensile stress due to
the bending moment, showing a ductile behavior with a large
deformation before the total failure of the beam specimen. As already pointed out, the diagrams show a rise of the load in the
post-peak phase, even if small as a consequence of the reduced
area of PET strips utilized. Another important result to be put in
evidence is that failure occurred for all the bers without any sliding from the concrete beam.
From simple calculus it was found that the experimental behavior of the beams specimens (especially at cracking and rst ultimate loads) reects, in a satisfactory manner, the theoretical
predictions. In the post-peak phase it is possible to determine
the mean value of the ultimate bending moment, Mm = 607.5
kN mm. Equating Mm to the presumable reacting bending moment,
the mean force in the bers at cracking is T = 3.97 kN. This value,
divided by the total transversal area of the bers, results in a failure stress in the bers equal to rf = 1103 N/mm2, that is of the
same order of magnitude of the values obtained from direct tensile
strength tests [7].
Regarding the splitting tensile strength of concrete at the mean
peak load Pmax,mean = 10.75 kN, assuming to neglect the strength
force of the bers because, as previously mentioned, concrete can
Type of tests
Compressive
strength (N/mm2)
Splitting tensile
strength (N/mm2)
36.9
3.65
39.27
4.55
53.2
51.5
2.34
2.3
404
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