Development and characterization of fly ash based PVA fiber reinforced Engineered Geopolymer Composites incorporating metakaolin

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This work focused on the development and characterization of fly ash based polyvinyl alcohol fiber reinforced Engineered Geopolymer Composites incorporating Metakaolin (MFA-EGC). Both mechanical properties and microstructural characteristics were studied. The optimal mix design of the MFA-EGC was selected using the Taguchi method. The tensile strain capacities of the optimal mix at 3d, 7d and 28d can reach 6.8%, 6.4% and 5.2%, respectively. Multi-cracking is a pronounced phenomenon of the MFA-EGC. The cracks are uniformly distributed, with the spacing of 2–5 μm and the average crack width of only ~25 μm. It was demonstrated that the MFA-EGC can meet both the energy and the strength criteria required to achieve tensile strain hardening behavior, and saturated multi-cracking is expected. The microstructural analyses using XRD, FT-IR and SEM indicate that the reaction products of the hardened MFA-EGC were mainly amorphous aluminosilicate phases, while new crystalline phases were concluded insignificant.