Effect of natural Esparto fibers on compressive properties of mortar: Experimental analysis and analytical modelling

The objective of this research work is to study the implementation of cement composites reinforced with esparto fibers. The compressive properties of these composites are deeply investigated in order to study the influence of certain variability parameters, in particular the length and the reinforcement rate. Fracture energy for different formulations is calculated. Results show that it goes from 13.037 KJ/m2 to 49.14 KJ/m2 in the case of Esparto fiber reinforcement. In addition, this energy increases proportionally with the length. Esparto fiber-reinforced mortars have the highest breaking energy values. It reaches 106.61 KJ/m2 for the length of 40mm. Mortar matrix have a fragile character, while for fiber-based mortar, ductile behavior is observed. This is resulting in a significant plastic deformation before breakage. The incorporation of the fibers therefore avoids brittle breakage of the composite material and induces a more resilient behavior. The breaking energy of all fiber-reinforced mortars is significantly higher than that of non-reinforced cement mortar. The response of fiber reinforced mortar to compressive test reveals that for a constant fiber rate, the compressive strength increases proportionally with the fiber length. Whereas, for a constant fiber length, the compressive strength of the fiber reinforced mortar increases when fiber ratio passes from 1% to 2% and then it decreases at 3 %. In addition, a quadratic analytical model was proposed in this work to estimate the compressive modulus of elasticity in terms of the studied parameters.