Browsing by Author "Etteh, Emmanuel Umoh"

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    Determination of flexural strength of velvet tamarind reinforced concrete slabs
    (Federal University of Technlogy, Owerri, 2023-10) Etteh, Emmanuel Umoh
    The need to research into alternative reinforcement materials for use in concrete structures has become pertinent due to high cost and low availability of steel reinforcement material. Velvet tamarind sticks also serves this purpose since it is cheaper and locally available for use as a reinforcement material. This research work presents the determination of flexural Strength of Velvet Tamarind Reinforced Concrete Slabs. This was to determine the flexural strength of concrete slabs reinforced with sticks of velvet tamarind as compared to concrete slabs reinforced with steel and unreinforced concrete slabs. The mix ratio of 1:2:4 was used for the concrete; with a water - cement ratio of 0.5. A total number of forty four (44) concrete slabs of size 500 x 500 x 100mm and 10 concrete cubes were cast. The cubes were used in testing the compressive strength at 28 days curing. Slabs were used to test for point load, uniformly distributed line load and uniformly distributed load with three sets of velvet tamarind stick reinforcement spaced at 75mm, 100mm, 125mm and 150mm. This was compared with slabs reinforced with 12mm steel spaced at 200mm and unreinforced concrete. The boundary conditions for the slabs were simply supported on all sides (SSSS). It was observed that the maximum flexural strength occur when the slabs were subjected to uniformly distributed load. The maximum flexural strength of slab reinforced with velvet tamarind stick was 14,345.94kN/m2 at 75mm. The maximum flexural strength of steel reinforced slab was 23,699.25kN/m2 while the maximum flexural strength of unreinforced concrete slab was 11,813.34kN/m2 . From this study, it can be concluded that increment in the amount of velvet tamarind stick increased the flexural strength of the slab due to the elastic properties of velvet tamarind stick which helped in improving the tensile strength of concrete, though in comparison, steel is still preferred. The gain in stress of velvet tamarind stick reinforced concrete slab was more than that of plain concrete, but lesser than steel. Based on the result of this research, velvet tamarind stick can be used as reinforcement in concrete slabs where light loads are expected, light temporary military structures, light cover slabs for drain and pedestrian walkway.