HIGH TEMPERATURE TESTS ON TEXTILE REINFORCED CONCRETE (TRC) STRAIN SPECIMENS

Textile reinforced concrete (TRC) can be used for the restoration and strengthening of existing reinforced concrete structures. As such, certain requirements pertinent to its composite material behavior under fire loading must be met. Only a few studies of thin TRC layers examined under fire loading exist. Fire tests on 8 mm thick and 6 cm wide strain specimens were undertaken to supplement this limited body of knowledge. Polymer coated textiles of carbon fibers were used as reinforcement in fine grained concrete matrices. The temperature load was applied all side in form of infrared radiation with various constant heating rates. After reaching a predefined temperature a deformation controlled tension load was applied until tension failure of the fabric reinforcement occurs. Some specimens were set under a constant tensile load during heating. This investigation provides fundamental information on high temperature behavior of TRC under different temperatures without and with preloading in form of temperature dependent stress-strain-relations under tension. They show that the composite tensile strength decreases with temperature and with decreasing heating rate and that the dependency of strength on temperature becomes negligible/small with low heating rates.