Civil Engineering Applications of Polymer Composites

摘要

Researches have been done in order to improve performance of concrete and structures. As we know, polymers provide huge opportunities for the advancement of materials research, the improvement of material property, and the strengthening of structures damaged. In this respect, recent developments about polymer composites and their technological developments in civil engineering are aimed in this issue. Topics include recovery and modification of waste and recycled tire polymer fibers and their use as reinforcements of concrete. A novel proposal based on the modification of the physicochemical properties of the waste automotive tire particles, by using gamma irradiation, shows that improvements on the mechanical properties depend of gamma irradiation as well as concentration and size of waste tire particles. Another study shows that PP fibers can be substituted with higher amount of recycled tire polymer fibers obtaining concrete with similar shrinkage behavior. Such applications would contribute to solving the problem of waste tire disposal. Waste materials from Tetra Pak packages have been used as reinforcement of polymer concrete elaborated with unsaturated polyester resin and silica sand and submitted to gamma irradiation. The results show improvements on both compressive strength and flexural strength, as well as modulus of elasticity when polymer concrete is irradiated.