Effects of short coconut fiber on the mechanical properties, plastic cracking behavior, and impact resistance of cementitious composites

The present study examines the effect of adding random, short coconut fibers to various cementitious composites on the mechanical properties, plastic cracking, and impact resistance of these composites. Fibers underwent a washing and boiling pretreatment prior to being added to the composite mixture. Mixtures of the cementitious composites designed by Densified Mixture Design Algorithm (DMDA) method were made using different volume fractions of random, short coconut fiber (0%, 1%, 2.5%, and 4%) and different water-to-binder (W/B) ratios (0.3, 0.35, and 0.45). Furthermore, fly ash (FA) was used to fill the void between sand particles and ground blast furnace slag (GBFS) was used to substitute for the cement in the mix proportions. A variety of tests were conducted in accordance with the relevant standards to determine the properties of these coconut fiber cementitious composites. The findings show that higher volumes of coconut fiber in the mortar tend to reduce the density and to increase the superplasticizer dosage. The addition of coconut fiber and higher W/B ratios were associated with lower compressive strength and higher absorption. The 28-day flexural strength of cementitious sheets and the modulus of rupture, respectively, increased from 5.2 to 7.4 MPa and from 6.8 to 8.8 MPa, as the coconut-fiber-to-mortar ratio ranged from 0% to 4%. Adding coconut fiber positively influenced first-crack deflection, toughness indices, plastic cracking, and impact resistance in the composites.