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Enhancing impact resistance of self-compacting concrete using recycled PET fibers and metallized plastic fibers: an integrated experimental and analytical investigation
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Researchers found that mixing recycled plastic bottle waste and metallized plastic scraps into concrete makes it much better at absorbing impacts without cracking, up to 486 hits versus far fewer for regular concrete. This means construction waste plastic could be reused in buildings and roads, cutting landfill waste while making structures safer and more durable.
Abstract The intrinsic brittleness of cementitious composites under localized dynamic loading, combined with the accumulating environmental burden of post-consumer polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and metallized plastic (MP) packaging waste, motivates the search for concrete mixtures that simultaneously provide energy-absorption capacity and material circularity. This study presents an integrated experimental and analytical assessment of self-compacting concrete (SCC) modified with recycled PET particles as a partial replacement for fine aggregate (0–15% by mass) and two families of discrete polymeric reinforcement, recycled PET fibers and metallized plastic fibers, incorporated at volume fractions of 0–2.0%. Twenty mixtures were proportioned at a constant water-to-cementitious-material ratio of 0.36, with silica fume contents of 5–20% and scoria lightweight coarse aggregate occupying approximately 40% of the total aggregate volume. A total of 240 specimens were characterized through fresh-state assessments (slump flow, V-funnel, L-box, J-ring, and U-tunnel), hardened mechanical testing (compressive, splitting tensile, and flexural strength, UPV, density, and water absorption), and repeated drop-weight impact loading adapted from ASTM D2444 using a 4.54 kg hammer released from 457 mm onto 150 × 65 mm discs. Filling and passing ability deteriorated monotonically with plastic content, with slump flow declining from 679 to 586 mm and V-funnel time increasing from 5.6 s to 10.8 s; linear regression demonstrated that the fiber-bearing series lost flowability more than twice as rapidly per unit PET addition (− 5.24 and − 5.60 mm/%) as the fiber-free series (− 2.49 and − 2.47 mm/%). Compressive strength peaked at 43.4 MPa in the unmodified reference, whereas the peak splitting tensile strength (9.2 MPa), flexural strength (5.28 MPa), and maximum impact resistance (486 blows; 10.8 kJ) occurred in PET-fiber mixtures with substantially lower compressive capacity. This mechanistic decoupling establishes that compressive strength is an unreliable proxy for impact toughness and identifies 10% PET replacement with 1.0–1.5% fiber as the governing design envelope.
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