Study on Properties of Fibre Reinforced Light Weight Aggregate Concrete

Lightweight concrete is commonly used in civil engineering field, especially as a filler material (or) for the manufacture of heat and sound insulating units. In most industrialised countries, lightweight concrete production is performed by using a highly mechanised processes based on different automation techniques. Various artificial and natural porous aggregates are generally used in these types of concrete. All the porous aggregates have their own characteristic properties, which markedly affect the properties of lightweight concrete. Among the lightweight concrete, pumice concrete was generally considered as being unsuitable for load bearing uses. Increasing utilization of lightweight materials in structural applications is making pumice stone a very popular raw material. The experimentations are designed by replacing the coarse aggregates by pumice aggregates in different percentage, such as 10%, 20%, 30%, 40%, and 50% for M20 grade concrete. From this replacement, the optimum value is achieved at 30% and 0.5%, 1%, 1.5% of polyester (Recron 3s) fiber is added. The compressive strength, splitting tensile strength of concrete samples made with different fibers amounts varies from 0%, 0.5%, 1%, 1.5% were studied. The compressive strength, Spilt tensile strength and flexural strength of pumice concrete is seen to increase with the fiber content and reaches an optimum value. The samples with added Polyester fibers of 1% showed better results in comparison with the others.