Development of Fibre Reinforced Cementitious Composite for Ceiling Application

Natural sponge fibre (Acanthus montanus) was used as reinforcement for ceiling materials in this research work. This fibre, being fairly strong and stiff as well as cheap and plentiful with low energy demand during manufacture, are strong contenders for the reinforcement of cement-based materials. The fibre, whose mass fraction was the variable in this work, was cut down into smaller sizes and mixed with pulverised waste paper, cement and water. The resulting slurry was then poured into rectangular moulds which were compacted until the excess water was expelled and resulting composites became hard. Demoulded samples were left to cure in the open laboratory air for 28 days. Flexural and water absorptivity tests were carried out on the various samples which showed that reinforcement and best mechanical properties were obtained at optimum fibre mass fraction of 4 % when compared with the brittle matrix in the absence of reinforcement. These tests confirmed the possible use of sponge fibres as reinforcement in cement matrices for ceiling purposes