Engineered cementitious composites (ECC) show the distinguished characteristics of high post-cracking resistance and ductility. High-strength stainless steel wire rope (HSSSWR) has been successfully used for restoring or strengthening of existing structures. By combining the advantages of these two materials, a new composite system formed by embedding HSSSWR into ECC was proposed and expected to be a promising engineering material for repair or strengthening of structures. To investigate the tensile failure mechanism and mechanical properties of HSSSWR-reinforced ECC, an experimental study on 27 HSSSWR-reinforced ECC plates was conducted considering the effects of the reinforcement ratio of longitudinal HSSSWRs, formula of ECC and width of the plate. Test results revealed that HSSSWR-reinforced ECC exhibit superior post-cracking resistance, deformation capacity and crack-width control capacity. Increasing the reinforcement ratio of longitudinal HSSSWRs can effectively enhance the tensile strength, crack-width control capacity, deformation capacity and tensile toughness of HSSSWR-reinforced ECC. Adding thickener in ECC can significantly improve the crack-width control capacity and deformation capacity of HSSSWR-reinforced ECC due to enhancing uniform distribution of polyvinyl alcohol fibers, but would slightly reduce the cracking stress and maximum tensile stress by bringing small bubbles in the matrix. The tensile properties of HSSSWR-reinforced ECC plates are almost not affected by varying the plate width. Besides, a tensile constitutive model was developed for charactering the stress–strain relationship of HSSSWR-reinforced ECC in tension. Based on mechanical theories and failure characteristics of HSSSWR-reinforced ECC, the model parameters were determined, and calculation equations of cracking stress and tensile strength were proposed. The accuracy of the developed model and calculation equations was verified by test results.

Engineered cementitious composites (ECC) are distinguished by ultrahigh ductility and multiple cracking. High-strength stainless steel wire rope (HSSSWR) meshes have been successfully applied to strengthening existing structures. Taking advantage of both ECC and HSSSWR meshes, HSSSWR mesh–reinforced ECC promises to be an innovative strengthening material for significantly improving overall performance of existing structures. In order to capture the bond performance between HSSSWR meshes and ECC, direct pull-out tests on HSSSWR meshes embedded in ECC were performed considering the effects of spacing of transverse wire ropes, bond length, and nominal diameter of HSSSWR. The influence laws of the considered factors on the bond behavior between HSSSWR meshes and ECC were investigated. The failure characteristics and bond-slip relationship between HSSSWR meshes and ECC were revealed through analyses of experimental results. A bond-slip model was proposed to predict the bond-slip behavior of HSSSWR meshes in ECC, which was verified to be acceptable by comparing it with test results.