Mechanical properties of high-strength steel–polyvinyl alcohol hybrid fibre engineered cementitious composites

ABSTRACT With the advancement of material technology, the use of high-strength and high-performance materials in the construction industry is gaining popularity. Steel–polyvinyl alcohol (steel–PVA) hybrid fibre engineered cementitious composites (ECC) is one of such high-performance class of construction materials whose mechanical properties are not well studied in the literature especially in high-strength matrix. Therefore, in this paper, the mechanical properties of four different grades of high-strength steel–PVA ECC are experimentally investigated. ECC with nominal compressive strengths from 60 to 100 MPa are developed. Their mechanical properties including compressive and tensile stress–strain behaviour, elastic modulus and toughness are studied with particular focus on high-strength matrix. Test results show that the developed steel–PVA ECC could achieve good tensile (~0.8%) and compressive (~0.5%) ductility for general structural applications. Simple empirical relationships to predict the elastic modulus and tensile strength of the developed steel–PVA ECC as a function of their compressive strength are suggested. Moreover, an analytical model to generate a complete compressive stress–strain curve of the high-strength steel–PVA ECC is proposed and verified against the experimental results. The proposed stress–strain model would present a useful reference for non-linear analysis of structural elements utilising steel–PVA ECC.