PULTRUSION VERSUS CASTING PROCESSES FOR THE PRODUCTION OF FABRIC-CEMENT COMPOSITES

摘要

There is growing interest in recent years in the use of fabrics as reinforcements for cement composites. The present paper addresses the influence of the production processes, casting and pultrusion of fabric-cement composites, on the mechanical properties of the composites, fabric-matrix bond and microstructural characteristics. Bonded glass mesh fabrics, woven polyethylene fabrics and warp knitted weft insertion polypropylene fabrics were studied. Tensile, flexural and fabric-matrix bond tests were conducted to study the mechanical performance of the composites. SEM observations were carried out to correlate microstructural characteristics with mechanical performance. The advantages of using the pultrusion process for the production of fabric-cement composites were clearly identified in this study. Improved mechanical performance was obtained for fabric-cement composites produced with the pultrusion process, especially with fabrics made from multifilament yarns (not impregnated in epoxy) having open junction points. This improved mechanical performance could be accounted for by the improved bonding, which was induced by the impregnation of the spaces between the filaments in the pultrusion process, and the lack of such effective impregnation is the casting process. However, in the epoxy impregnated fabric and the mono-filament fabric sufficient interfacial bonding could be obtained in the casting process and pultrusion did not yield a significant advantage.