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Models for Prediction of Structural Properties of Palmnut Fibre-Reinforced Cement Mortar Composites
Abstract
An analytical study was carried out to investigate the structural properties of palmnut fibre reinforced cement-based composites. Explicit expressions were derived for the flexural, compressive and elongation behavior of composites using a two-phase constitutive model and verified using results obtained from literature. The predicated and measured values were found to agree favourably. Both the predicted and measured composite specimens showed increasing flexural strength up to the optimum fibre volume fraction while the compressive strength decreases with increase in fibre volume fraction. The correlation coefficients were high showing the effectiveness of the two-phase constitutive models in the analysis and design of palmnut fibre-reinforced cement composites.