Experimental Investigation on Strengthening of Latex Treated Coconut Fiber in Concrete

Abstract

Coconut fibers have the highest toughness amongst natural fibers. The experiment has carried out to investigate the behavioural study of coconut fibre in concrete member. The Coconut fibre is treated using natural latex before using in concrete, so that it is not be affected by moisture content presented in concrete. In this experimental study 28 days of the compressive strength is carried out using different coconut fibre length of 20mm, 25mm and 30mm respectively with a different percentage as 0.5%, 0.75% and 1%. The selected input variables include the length of the fiber, percentage of the fiber, and maximum load of the specimen. In this paper, Back-Propagation Neural Network (BPNN) model has been developed to predict the Compressive strength of Concrete members. A parametric study is carried out using BPNN to study the influence of each parameter affecting the characteristic compressive strength of the concrete. The results of this study indicate that BPNN provide good predictions which are better than those from other available methods. These models can serve as reliable and simple predictive tools for the prediction of compressive strength of the members.