Adding Glass Fibers to 3D Printable Mortar: Effects on Printability and Material Anisotropy

Adding fibers is an effective way to enhance the printability and mechanical performance of 3D printable cementitious materials. Glass fibers are commonly used owing to their sound mechanical properties, high durability and affordable price. However, there is still a lack of systematic and in-depth...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inBuildings (Basel) Vol. 13; no. 9; p. 2295
Main Authors Li, Leo Gu, Xiao, Bo-Feng, Cheng, Cong-Mi, Xie, Hui-Zhu, Kwan, Albert Kwok Hung
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Basel MDPI AG 01.09.2023
Subjects
3-D printers
3D printing
Anisotropy
Cement
Compressive strength
Concrete construction
Density
Dimensional stability
Extrudability
Fibers
Flexural strength
Glass fibers
material anisotropy due to printing
Mechanical properties
Mortars (material)
Particle size
Polyvinyl alcohol
printability
printable mortar
Printing
Raw materials
Reinforced concrete
Tensile strength
Three dimensional printing
Water-cement ratio
China
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Summary:Adding fibers is an effective way to enhance the printability and mechanical performance of 3D printable cementitious materials. Glass fibers are commonly used owing to their sound mechanical properties, high durability and affordable price. However, there is still a lack of systematic and in-depth research on the effects of adding glass fibers to cementitious materials. In this study, a series of 3D printable mortars with varying glass fiber content and water/cement (W/C) ratio were produced to evaluate their printability, flexural strength and compressive strength. The results showed that decreasing the W/C ratio generally has positive effects on printability and mechanical performance, whereas increasing the glass fiber content from 0% to 1% would substantially improve the extrudability, dimensional stability and buildability; increase the flexural strength by up to 82%; but decrease the compressive strength by up to 35%. Such large differences in the effects of glass fibers on the flexural and compressive strengths indicate significant material anisotropy. In fact, comparison of the strength results of printed specimens to those of un-printed specimens reveals that the printing process could increase the flexural strength by 98% but decrease the compressive strength by 47%.
ISSN:2075-5309
2075-5309
DOI:10.3390/buildings13092295