Investigating the Hybrid Effect of Micro-steel Fibres and Polypropylene Fibre-Reinforced Magnesium Phosphate Cement Mortar

Abstract To overcome the drawbacks caused by the intrinsic brittleness of cementitious materials, various types of fibres were incorporated as reinforcements. Extensive research on Ordinary Portland cement indicated that compared with the use of a single type of fibres, the mixed-use of multiple fibres can significantly improve both strength and toughness of the cementitious composites, which is referred to as the hybrid effect. However, such hybrid effect in multiple fibre-reinforced magnesium phosphate cement-based composite (HFRMC) still lack quantitative understanding. Therefore, this study conducted a series of experiments, including slump flow tests, compression tests, four-point bending tests and microstructure analysis, to investigate the hybrid effect of micro-steel fibres (MSF) and polypropylene (PP) fibres in HFRMC. Two types of mixed designs of HFRMC were conducted: 1. total fibres fraction (including both PP fibres and MSF) was fixed to be 1.6%; 2. PP fibres fraction was fixed to be 1.6% with different addition of MSF. Our results indicated that the slump flow of magnesium phosphate cement mortar varied around 7.6–8.8% with the hybrid use of MSF and PP fibres, while the flexural strength and toughness increased around 13.7–23.1% and 1.6–45.9%, respectively.