Impact resistance of structural elements in concrete

Recycling of waste materials is, undoubtedly, one of the most important problems in the future to be solved in all possible ways. It will be necessary to find solutions, even original, imaginative and brilliant to be, of course, first tested before their practical application. In the present article the preliminary results of some static and impact tests performed on concrete specimens reinforced with fibers made from waste polyethilene terephthalate (PET) bottles are reported. The fibers have been obtained by simply cutting the bottles and have been utilized as discrete reinforcement of specimens and little beams in concrete in substitution of steel bars. A specific test set-up has been designed and some slab specimens have been manufactured for the impact tests. The tests are to be considered an approach to more extensive investigations on the use of PET as a reinforcing material in concrete and masonry structures and they provided interesting results suggesting a possible use of this material in the form of flat or round bars, or networks for structural reinforcement, replacing the more expensive reinforcement consisting of steel wire nets and carbon or glass nets. Possible applications of PET reinforcement are newjersey guard-rails, road pavements and, especially, airport pavements and all those cases that are more frequently subjected to impact actions and shocks. The reinforcement with PET has the advantage to be less corrosive and less expensive than reinforcement consisting of steel wire nets and carbon or glass nets.