Experimental Study of Fiber Pull-Outs in a Polymer Mortar Matrix

Materials (Basel). 2023 May 8;16(9):3594. doi: 10.3390/ma16093594.

Abstract

In order to study the influence of vinyl acetate-ethylene copolymerization emulsions on the bonding performance of fiber and mortar, mortar materials with different polymer contents were prepared. The optimal mix ratio of the matrix was obtained using a pull-out test with a 0° inclination angle. On this basis, polypropylene fibers and alkali-resistant glass fibers were set at different burial depths (6 mm, 12 mm, and 18 mm) and different burial angles (0°, 30°, 45°, and 60°). The load-displacement curves of two types of fibers pulled out from the polymer mortar were obtained. The test results show that polymer contents of 3% and 5% increase the peak pull-out loads of glass fibers and polypropylene fibers by 16.28% and 30.72% and 7.41% and 27.11%, respectively. When the polymer content is 7%, the peak pull-out load decreases by 1.31% and 24.26%, especially for polypropylene fiber, which significantly weakens the bonding performance between the matrix and the fiber. The pull-out load of glass fibers and polypropylene fibers increases with the increase in the buried depth, and both show tensile failure at 18 mm. As the embedding angle increases, the pull-out load of polypropylene fibers decreases continuously, while the glass fiber shows a higher pull-out load at 30°.

Keywords: cement mortar; glass fiber; microstructure; polypropylene fiber; pull-out load–slip curve; vinyl acetate–ethylene polymer.

Grants and funding

This research received no external funding.