Finite Element Design and Analysis of Sustainable Mono-Reinforced and Hybrid-Reinforced Fibergeopolymers

Introduction. Environmental improvement involves the recycling of man-made materials for product recovery with high performance characteristics. However, in general, energy-intensive and uneconomical materials have no alternative in construction. Literary information on the problem is insufficient and uncompiled. The presented article is intended to fill this gap. The research objective is to study mono-reinforced and hybrid-reinforced fibergeopolymers. For this purpose, two problems are solved: design of polymers and analysis of beams made from them using the finite element method. Materials and Methods. The binding base for the production of fibergeopolymers was sintered particles (beads) extracted from basalt wool waste — technogenic fibrous materials (TFM). The fiber was made from metal cord, basalt wool waste and polypropylene. Beams made from hybrid-reinforced fibergeopolymers were studied under bending and shear in the ANSYS 16.1 software environment. Results. Two types of geopolymers were obtained: – mono-reinforced (fiber from metal cord, polypropylene fiber, and TFM – fiber from waste from basalt wool production); – hybrid-fiber-reinforced (metal cord + polypropylene, metal cord + TFM, polypropylene + TFM). High values of elastic modulus (more than 25 GPa), bending strength (up to 10.19 MPa) and compression strength (up to 46.67 MPa) were defined. The ratio of bending and compression strength for the studied and traditional materials was 1:4 and 1:10, respectively. The simulated and experimental indicators of beam deflections under loads from 5 to 72 kN were compared. It was found that finite element modeling allowed designing structures from the developed materials and predicting their performance characteristics. Discussion. The cases of the smallest discrepancy between the modeling and experimental data were established. For FGP-1, it was 8% (load — 35 kN), for FGP-2 — 11% (50 kN), for FGP-3 — 7% (38 kN), for FGP-1 (1%) — 3% (30 kN). Among the hybrid-reinforced fibergeopolymers, the best compliance was that of HFGP-3. At a load of 55 kN, the discrepancy was 0.80% (theory — 4.98 mm, experiment — 5.02 mm). For HFGP-1, the best indicator was 1.85% (72 kN, 5.85 mm, 5.96 mm), for HFGP-2 — 9.12% (63 kN, 5.58 mm, 6.14 mm). The applied value of the results was confirmed by their visualization – the similarity and coincidence of the curves on the graphs. Conclusion. The advantages of the proposed innovative components for the production of building materials are proved. They are environmentally friendly and show sufficient workability. Design of hybrid-reinforced fibergeopolymers makes it possible to obtain high values of bending and compression strength (significantly higher than that of unreinforced concrete). The modulus of elasticity of more than 25 GPa proves good resistance of the material to deformations. The results of the modeling are adequate to the results of the experiments.