Hello,
Is it possible to replace the steel bars of reinforce concrete element with a plastic bar at least from research perspective?
Thanks
Hi dear Zuhair Al-Jaberi
Maybe following articles could helpful for you.
Hi Zuhair Al-Jaberi. Since the Young's modulus of plastics is much lesser than that of concrete, using it to reinforce concrete would be tricky. If the steel bars in RCC are simply replaced with similar plastic bars, then it would not reinforce the concrete rather it would weaken it as the concrete would be forced to take a greater load causing greater stresses than if a pure concrete structure is used. I feel that using pure plastic would be a better idea ( this is just my guess because there are already people using recycled plastic bricks to build houses). Hope this helps. Regards.
Using any other material which is having different thermal expansion coefficient from concrete will be deterimental for bond strength as the basic assumptions of having bond between the concrete and reinforcing material is essential.
The yield strength of plastic will not have match with steel.
Young's modulus of plastic is very small and therefore modular ration i.e. Young,s modulus ratio of steel to plastic will be very high.
Look into .. if concrete and plastic be able to make a perfect bond with each other? Because that is an ultimate necessity without which reinforcement so sounds useless.
Depends on its yield and ultimate strength. Also, can it bounded properly with concrete?
We have conducted tests (stress-strain) on the strips of wasted plastic bottles whose thickness is less than 1cm and it showed an average tensile strength of 2800-3000psi which I think is enough. If one can manage to glue 8-9 strips by an epoxy of sufficient strength, It will reach to yield strength of Grade 40 steel, So yes it can be used as a shear stirrup. But as other researchers have mentioned about its bond with concrete, I am also having some concerns about it, but I believe that if some the strips are twisted about their longitudinal axis, It will get the required groves to have a good bond with concrete just like deformed bars have in comparison to plain bars.
For SLS, maybe ok. But for ULS reinforcement have to be high performance. High tensile strength is not sufficient I think
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