Behavior of Ferrocement Reinforced Concrete Beams Incorporating Waste Glass Exposed to Fire

This study is an experiment that looks at what happens when 18 supported reinforced concrete beams with waste glass inside them are put on fire. All the supported beams were tested under a three-point load. We classified the beams into three groups based on the glass-to-sand replacement ratio. Two sand replacement ratios (10% and 20%) were considered and compared with the control beams (without replacement). Two periods of burning were studied to investigate the mechanical properties of ferrocement and the behavior of simply supported beams. We considered a temperature of 550 °C and gradually increased the burning to reach this degree. Mode failure, mechanical properties, and load–deflection were present in this study. According to this study and its results, it seems that approximately all mode failures were compound flexural and shear failures. The flexural and compressive strength of replacing sand with glass concrete leads to an improvement in the flexural behavior of the reinforced concrete beam incorporating waste glass (brittle failure) that happened when burning the beam element without sand replacement glasses. The replacement ratio (10%) is the best value of the replacement ratio of the glasses; the compressive strength increased by about 10% to 29% by the replacement ratio. When replacing 10% of the sand with glasses, the ratio increases from 1% to 16%, but the compressive strength decreases from 20% to 51% when the burning time increases from one hour to an hour and a half. When 10% of the sand is replaced by glasses by weight, the first crack load capacity goes up by about 8% for one hour of burning and by 16% for one hour and a half of burning compared to beams that are not burning. The ultimate load capacity also goes up by about 17.5% for one hour of burning and by 23.5% for one hour and a half of burning compared to beams that are not burning. Otherwise, sand replacement was 10% by glasses; by weight, the ultimate load strength increased about 6% when the burning was one hour and 12% when the burning was one hour and a half compared with the beams without burning for the same phase.