Experimental Investigation Into Banana Fibre Reinforced Lightweight Concrete Masonry Prism Sandwiched with GFRP Sheet

This paper presents the stress-strain behaviour of Natural Banana microfibre reinforced Lightweight Concrete (LWC) prisms under axial compression. The compressive strength of masonry is obtained by testing stack bonded prisms under compression normal to its bed joint. LWC blocks of cross-sectional dimensions 200 mm x 150 mm were used to construct the prism with an overall height of 630 mm. Three series of specimens were cast; (a) prism without Banana fibre (control), (b) prism with Banana microfibres, (c) prism with Banana microfibres sandwiched with Glass Fibre Reinforced Polymer (GFRP) sheets. Natural Banana fibres were used as structural fibre reinforcement at different volume fractions (VF). The results indicate that the presence of fibres helps to improve the strength, stiffness, and ductility of LWC stack bonded prisms under compression. The test results also indicate that banana fibre reinforcement provides an improved crack bridging mechanism at both micro and macro levels. The GFRP sandwiched prism specimens exhibited excellent ductility and load-carrying capacity resulting from improved plastic deformation tolerance under compression and bonding between the LWC block and GFRP sheet.