Tailoring Engineered Cementitious Composites with local ingredients

• ECC with tensile strain capacity of 3–6% can be developed based on local ingredients.
• The Ca-content and particle size play an important role in ECC development.
• The inclusion of crumb rubber can be effective in enhancing tensile ductility in ECC.

Engineered Cementitious Composites (ECC) is a kind of High Performance Fiber Reinforced Cementitious Composites (HPFRCC) with a low fiber volume content of 2%. The unique properties of tensile strain hardening behavior and tight multiple cracks ensure that ECC can meet the stringent requirements of resiliency and durability of concrete infrastructures. While there are strong initiatives for the adoption of ECC in China, wider applications will require localization of material ingredients. In this paper, ECCs with local ingredients, including domestic PVA fibers, fly ash and crumb rubber, were developed under the guidance of micromechanics model for ECC. The fiber/matrix interface parameters and matrix parameters from single fiber pullout test and fracture toughness test respectively, were obtained for the tailoring of domestic ECC. The experimental results indicated that cost-effective ductile ECCs can be designed successfully using local material ingredients. These composites show an ultimate tensile strength of 4–5 MPa and tensile strain capacity of 3–6%.