1st Croatian Conference on Earthquake Engineering 1CroCEE 2021

Externally bonded Fiber Reinforced Polymers (FRP’s) are frequently used in civil engineering applications in order to rehabilitate or strengthen existing structural elements. FRPs have been successfully used as flexural or shear reinforcement. However, they exhibit some significant drawbacks such as impermeability, loss of strength at elevated temperatures, and combustibility during a fire. The main culprits for all these disadvantages are the organic matrices, used to impregnate the fibers and bond the composite to the concrete substrate. To remedy these shortcomings strengthening systems based on cementitious mortars in combination with textiles have been investigated. These systems are known as textile-reinforced mortars (TRM) or fabric reinforced cementitious matrices (FRCM). In this pilot study, a new type of inorganic matrix is being evaluated. More specifically, the matrix is a mortar based on geopolymers, specifically developed to replace cementitious matrices typically used in TRM/FRCM applications. In order to access their performance, four geopolymer mortar mixtures along with two commercially available cementitious mortars were examined. More specifically, standard mortar prism specimens were fabricated in order to obtain the mortar’s flexural and compressive strength. The best performing geopolymer mixture was identified. The test results are quite promising, indicating that geopolymer mortars can exhibit similar, and in some cases even better flexural and compressive performance compared to the cementitious mortars.