Stress strain behavior of hybrid steel-PVA fiber reinforced cementitious composites under uniaxial compression

It is well understood that the inclusion of fibers into concrete can reduce the weakness and increase the performance of concrete. Hybrid fibers can achieve more performance gain compared with single fiber reinforced concrete. Fiber reinforced cementitious composites are a breed of high performance concrete containing fibers but without coarse aggregate. This study investigated the axial compressive behavior of cementitious composites with hybrid steel-polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) fibers. A total of 24 cementitious composites of different fiber content and compressive strength were investigated. The failure modes, peak stress, peak strain, elastic modulus, toughness index, as well as stress strain curves of the cementitious composites were obtained and carefully interpreted. Based on the test results, a stress strain curve with satisfactory accuracy was proposed for cementitious composites with hybrid steel-PVA fibers.