CHALLENGES FOR STRAIN HARDENING CEMENTITIOUS COMPOSITES – DEFORMABILITY VERSUS MATRIX DENSITY

Recently, fiber reinforced cementitious materials with novel properties have been developed. Here, novel properties mean “high tensile strain capacity with strain hardening and multiple fine cracks” and “high durability due to dense matrix with extremely low water to binder ratio”. Although each property mentioned above is individually important, Ultra High Performance Strain Hardening Cementitious Composites (UHP-SHCC) with outstanding mechanical and protective performance are required for sustainable structures. This paper summarizes some issues on the recent fiber reinforced materials concerning each material design concept. This paper also presents the author’s trials in order to develop UHP-SHCC by means of an optimization procedure based on uniaxial tensile, air permeability and capillary absorption tests.