An Experimental Investigation into theMechanical Properties of New Natural Fiber Reinforced Mortar

Since the starting the 21st century, there is an increased awareness that non-renewable resources are becoming scarce, and dependence on renewable resources is growing. The 21st century may be the cellulosic century as we look more and more to renewable plant resources for products. It is easy to say that natural fibers are renewable and sustainable. Although the use of these materials is not new, horse hair was used in mortar and straw for mud bricks, and many plants types like sisal, coir, bamboo, jute, akwara, elephant grass…etc. In this papers, a human hair fibers (HHF) is studied as a reinforced material in cementitious material. A total of 86 concrete specimens (Cubes, cylinders, prisms and plates) are tested to study the effect of including human hair fibers HHF reinforcement on the mechanical properties of flowable mortar fiber reinforced concrete. Fibers of different lengths and equivalent diameters were used with an aspect ratio ranged from 500 to 700, fiber content ranges from zero to 1 percent by volume. The influence of fiber content on the compressive strength, splitting tensile strength, flexural strength and load deflection is presented for two w/c ratios (0.6 and 0.7). An improvement in the energy absorption capacity due to the fiber addition is observed, and the optimum fiber volume fracture is seen to be 0.8%. The experimental findings in our tested samples will encourage future researches in this direction for long term performance to extending this cheap type of fibers for use in structural applications especially for low strength cementitious materials.