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Description / Abstract:
INTRODUCTION
Thin reinforced cementitious products are used widely today in a
variety of applications worldwide. Thin reinforced cementitious
products are strong, possess superior deformability characteristics
and enhanced impact and fatigue resistance—properties that are of
great value in many practical applications. The aforementioned
performance characteristics result primarily due to the inclusion
of reinforcement in the cementitious matrixes of these products. In
the past, asbestos fibers were the popular form of reinforcement in
manufacturing thin cementitious products because asbestos fibers
were widely available, inexpensive, possessed favorable processing
characteristics, and provided significant improvements in strength
and toughness characteristics of cements and mortars (Table 1.1).
The use of asbestos fibers, however, continues to decline rapidly
due to the serious health hazard risk to people involved in
handling asbestos fibers and products. Consequently, other
reinforcement materials have been developed to replace asbestos
fibers in thin cementitious composites. These reinforcements are
available in different geometric configurations such as discrete
fibers, continuous fibers, and meshes. The former can be classified
as a discontinuous reinforcement and the latter two as continuous
reinforcement. The choice of reinforcement in terms of material
type and geometric configuration has a significant influence on the
engineering properties of the resulting thin cementitious products.
Thin cementitious products that incorporate metal meshes as
reinforcement are commonly referred to as ferrocement. A detailed
description of metal mats and meshes and products made thereof is
covered in ACI 549R and not covered in this report. Readers are
referred to that document for further information. Thin
cementitious products may contain both discontinuous and continuous
reinforcements to produce products possessing tailored performance
characteristics.
Typical applications of thin reinforced cementitious products
include exterior façade claddings, architectural elements, roofing
panels and tiles, substrate panels for installation of tiles and
other finishes, tunnel and sewer linings, cable ducts, permanent
formwork, and pipes. Thin reinforced cementitious products have the
ability to satisfy diverse requirements in these applications, such
as strength, deformability, environmental durability, moisture
resistance, dimensional stability, fire resistance, and rapid and
economic construction.
As diverse are the reinforcement and the applications of thin
reinforced cementitious products, so are the manufacturing methods
to produce these products. A variety of cost-effective and rapid
manufacturing methods have been developed to produce thin
reinforced cementitious products having diverse performance
characteristics and a range of geometric and aesthetic features.
Popular manufacturing methods of thin reinforced cementitious
products are described in this report.
Chapter 2 describes different types of reinforcements used to
produce thin reinforced cementitious products. Known and popular
manufacturing methods of thin reinforced cementitious products are
described in Chapter 3. Chapter 4 describes the engineering
properties of thin reinforced cementitious products. Finally,
different applications of thin reinforced cementitious products are
highlighted in Chapter 5.