Ecology, Environment and Conservation Paper

STUDY ON UTILIZATION OF WASTE PLASTIC FIBRES AS A CONSTRUCTION ENTITY

S. Karthikeyan and G. Vennila

Abstract

The properties of polyethylene terepthalate fibres (PET) in different forms and their use as a building material in concrete has been studied. Three forms of PET fibres, manually cut fibres from used mineral water bottles of dimension 30 mm length and 5 mm wide, roughly cut PET flakes and uniform PET wires of 30 mm length and 2 mm diameter were used. The fibres are mixed with concrete in the ratio of 0%, 0.5%, 1.0%, 1.5% and 2.0% and tests were conducted. Mechanical properties of specimens with PET fibres were tested and compared with conventional concrete. The results obtained shows that the optimum fiber percentage to be added was found to be 1% in all the forms of fibre after which the strength tends to reduce than the conventional mix. Also the manually cut fibres provides an alternate way of disposal of plastic wastes in an effective manner contributing to solid waste reduction.