In the past few decades, concrete has been the most widely used material for structural applications in the world and uses steel reinforcement as aide to meet the flexural, tensile and ductility demands required of concrete structures. Manufacturing of concrete and steel reinforced concrete structures is associated with millions of tons of carbon dioxide emissions and mineral waste. This activity is also responsible for the depletion of a large number of non-renewable resources. Reinforcing steel is also a high cost material, consumes a lot of energy in its production. Consequently, the use of natural fibres as an alternative for steel reinforcement is widely investigated, to promote the use of sustainable concrete structures. This study aims to investigate the effect on durability, flexural, compressive, tensile properties and workability of concrete by incorporating coir fibre at varying fibre content to find the fibre content which gives optimum results. The fibre contents used were 0%, 0.5%, 1.0%, 1.5% and 2.0% by weight of cement. Furthermore, the effect of modifying the surface of the coir fibres by alkali treatment (i.e. 5 wt.% NaOH solution) and coating the fibres with epoxy paint and polyurethane varnish on coir fibre reinforced concrete (CFRC) were also investigated. Tests conducted on the CFRC specimens included slump test and flexural, compressive and tensile strength tests. Water absorption and sorptivity tests were also conducted to investigate the durability. Slump (workability) and unit weight reduced with an increase in fibre content. The surface modification methods used, had resulted in an increased workability and a reduced unit-weight. A coconut fibre content of 1% produced the best combination of flexural, tensile and compressive properties. Water absorption and sorption rate per unit time, increased with an increase of coir fibre content. It is also found that epoxy paint and alkali treatment of the fibres has a positive effect on the mechanical strength properties and also the durability and workability of the CFRC specimens. However, polyurethane varnish coating had a detrimental effect on the mechanical strength properties of the CFRC specimens.

Experimental and numerical analyses of eight in-plane restrained slabs (1425 mm (length) × 475 mm (width) × 150 mm (thickness)) reinforced with glass fiber-reinforced polymer (GFRP) bars are reported in this paper. The test slabs were installed into a rig, that provided 855 kN/mm in-plane stiffness and rotational stiffness. The effective depths of the reinforcement in the slabs varied from 75 mm to 150 mm, and the amount of reinforcement changed from 0 to 1.2% with 8, 12, and 16 mm bar diameters. A comparison of the service and ultimate limit state behavior of the tested one-way spanning slabs shows that a different design approach is necessary for GFRP-reinforced in-plane restrained slabs that demonstrate compressive membrane action behavior. Design codes based on yield line theory, which considers simply supported and rotationally restrained slabs, are not sufficient to predict the ultimate limit state behavior of restrained GFRP-reinforced slabs. Tests reported a higher failure load for GFRP-reinforced slabs by a factor of 2, which was further validated by numerical models. The experimental investigation was validated by a numerical analysis, and the acceptability of the model was further confirmed by consistent results obtained by analyzing in-plane restrained slab data from the literature.