Characterisation of Coir Fibres Used as Reinforcement under Compressive Loading

At present, developing countries like India are finding consistent increases in the cost of construction materials. Especially in India, most of the buildings in rural and small town areas are non-engineer constructions. Rural people are not giving importance to reinforcement detailing, so buildings are even getting damaged by light rain and extreme temperatures. So, it is becoming necessary to find cost effective materials for safe constructions. India is an agricultural country and generates a significant amount of agriculture materials every day. One of the bio based materials is coconut coir, which is abundantly available in the rural areas. Hence, an attempt has been made to study the possibility of developing bio composite concrete panels with coir fibres to be used as a low cost construction alternative. Coir fibres are used as a main constituent, which completely replaces the steel reinforcement. Natural resin is used as a binding material. In this study, two types of bio-composite panels, a single layer and a double layer were developed. The performance of the bio-composite at both walls and slab panels are evaluated under flexural and axial compression loadings.