The construction industry is always trying to find new, better and economical material to manufacture the new product, which is very beneficial to the industry. Today a significant growth is observed in the manufacture of composite material. With this also the energy conservation, corrosion risk, and sustainability is important when a product is changed or the new product is manufactured. Such as the basalt fiber (BF) and basalt rebars are used in reinforced concrete, which is one of the high-performance non-metallic fibers made from basalt rock melted at high temperature. By considering the most effective mechanical properties of basalt fiber there are various applications such as civil engineering structures where RCC members required sufficient stability against the loads and stresses developed into the structures due to the seasonal effects. Basalt fiber is used to improve the strength of concrete structures.
In short, basalt fiber reinforced concrete offers more characteristics such as light weight, good fire resistance and strength. In future it is very beneficial for construction industry. Many applications of basalt fiber are residential, industrial, highway and bridges etc.
However, the researchers could not exhibit the improvement in properties like compressive strength, modulus of elasticity, flexural strength, tensile strength, toughness, early age cracking etc. Even though these properties are important for desired quality of concrete, to overcome this, use of optimum percentage quantity of basalt fiber content added into the concrete is calculated with use of basalt rebar`s.
According to investigation work carried by author, apart from different percentages of chopped basalt fibers added into M-30 grade cogncrete, 0.5 % by volume of concrete is most effective and benificial quantity of basalt fiber to be mixed into the concrete. The study scheduled to carry casting of 18 cubes to find optimum percentage of basalt fiber. Further casting of 6 cylinders and 12 beams with basalt rebars will be carried out by adding optimum percentage of basalt fiber obtained. A comparison of experimental results will be carried out using FRC with basalt rebars by testing specimens into the laboratory. The result obtained shown improvement in compressive strength by 15.03%, increased split tensile strength by 45.35% and increased Flexural strength by 26.87% with maximum deflection taken by specimens increased by 114.07% when compared with normal specimens of concrete M30 grade.
Mr. Prashant Vilas Kapure
ME Structures
Lecturer in Civil Engineering
