Effect of fabric types on the impact behavior of cement based composites in flexure

Two different fabric types were used to investigate the effect of the fabric types on the static and impact behavior of fabric reinforced cement based composites by using three point bending tests for various drop heights of hammer and position of the specimens on the supports. For each fabric type, 18 specimens with dimensions of 50 mm × 150 mm × 12 mm were produced with the pultrusion process. The vertical specimens have more stiffness, less ultimate deflection and higher load carrying capacity than the horizontal specimens for same drop heights. However, the horizontal specimens subjected to impact loads have higher stresses than the vertical specimens due to the section properties. The tests showed that polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) fabric reinforced cement based composites carried higher impact loads, were stiffer and had less deflection than other composites. At the drop heights over 100 mm, the impact strength of the horizontal specimens sharply decreased, while that of the vertical specimens was remained same.