An experimental study on damaged cementitious mortars repaired by glass/epoxy composite materials

Abstract

Abstract This paper presents an experimental investigation on the post-repair flexural response of mortars with and without damage. In order to improve the mechanical properties of the damaged mortars, which were subjected to different loads ranging between 40 % and 90 %, the mortars specimens were reinforced and repaired using two different composite materials, the first with only epoxy resin, while the second consisted of a mixture of epoxy resin and glass fiber. The results show a significant improvement in the stiffness damaged. Therefore, the reinforced specimens by a layer of resin on the lower side surface increased the bending strength by 58 %, when compared to those control samples. The reinforcement using composite resin-fiber of glass exhibited considerable increases in the safety of constructions. The SEM images of damaged samples with and without repair, revealed the impact of reinforced glass fibers-mortar on the matrix-mortar by improving theirs mechanical performances.