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A crack closure system for cementitious composite materials using knotted shape memory polymer (k-SMP) fibresMaddalena, R., Bonanno, L., Balzano, B., Tuinea-Bobe, Cristina-Luminita, Sweeney, John, Mihai, I. 06 September 2020 (has links)
Yes / Formation of cracks represents one of the major causes of concrete deterioration, which can lead to durability
and safety issues. In this work, a novel crack closure system is developed, using polyethylene terephthalate (PET)
polymer fibres embedded in a mortar mix. The PET polymer has shape memory properties and shrinks upon
thermal activation, if free to do so, or otherwise exerts shrinkage restraint forces. A single knot was manufactured
at each end of the PET fibres to provide mechanical anchorage into the mortar matrix. Mortar samples with
embedded knotted fibres were pre-cracked and subsequently placed in an oven to thermally activate the polymers
and induce the shrinkage mechanism into the fibres. Crack closure was measured in the range 45–100%,
depending on the geometry, dimension and distribution of the fibres, and the size of the initial crack. / This work is supported by UKRI-EPSRC (Grant No. EP/P02081X/1, Resilient Materials 4 Life, RM4L).
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