Manufacturing of Fabric Cement Composites by Pultrusion Process

Introduction:
Fiber Reinforced Concrete (FRC) has an increasing popularity for use in the last decade, their
advantages compared to conventional concrete has led a wide spread production and
consumption. FRC provide diverse uses and applications including but not limited to building
exteriors (figure 1), bridges , highway pavements , parking areas, airport runways , architectural
panels, dock panels , pools , structural members of buildings and building rehabilitation [1] .
Some of the advantages of FRC in structural and pavement applications that it requires less
sections compared to conventional concrete. And as a replacement of asbestos cement
products in particular as thin boards of fiber cement . Steel, glass , polymer and carbon fiber
can all be used to produce FRC that satisfies strength and durability requirements of the
product.
a)

b)

Figure 1. a) Glass Fibre Reinforced Concrete (GFRC) used for building claddings
b) FRC storm water pipes

Production of FRC :
FRC processing can be made by various methods, methods of extrusion , compression molding ,
spin casting and pultrusion can all be used to manufacture FRC, the manufacturing process
which will discussed in this report is the pultrusion method by filament winding.

Manufacturing FRC using pultrusion process:

a) Material preparation :
For resin , rheological properties is the key factor for cement to be used in FRC ,
therefore along with cement other materials are used which have the ability to enhance
flow characteristics , such materials are silica fume, fly ash and superplasticizers [2] , the
cement slurry should have flow characteristic that provide infiltration within fabric
openings to account for interlocking .
Unidirectional AR glass fibers is widely used with FRC for cladding and buildings exterior
, rolls of this fabric is set up in its place in the filament winding setup , any angle can be
used for design requirements.

b) Processing and machine setup :

Pultrusion process is an automated process that provides the highest fiber content of FRC
products [3] , it provides high speed and production of many laminated composite layers
in a precise way , testing setup consist of feed section , guide section and take up section
[4] , process starts in the feed section with fabric rolls of any type of fiber (fiber 2 shows AR
glass fabric), which will then be separated by other rolls and then pulled through slurry
impregnation chamber.

Figure 2 . Manufacturing of AR glass fabric cement composite by pultrusion process

After impregnating, mechanical rolling and pressuring of the laminates are then applied
to provide adequate infiltration. Guidance section then carries the board into the molds
, were it then will be winded to the desired shape .

Figure 3 . Operation sketch for pultrusion process

For large scale production of cement cladding boards, sand used in cement composites
are ground to finer sizes to enhance infiltration, water is added in the milling process to
reduce the dust, the sand is then piped into tanks to segregate and most water is
drained out, wood pulp is added to decrease brittleness of the cement siding and then is
mixed with the cement and additives that improve flow characteristics and the rheology
of the mix.
Fabrics are then pulled through slurry and then will be squeezed by rollers to ensure
proper infiltration, multiple sheets will be fused together to form the cladding board .
Boards will then be cut and moved to curing chambers where pressurized ensure curing,
after curing the boards will be quality controls in terms of strength testing and durability
testing.
References :
1.
Wafa, F.F., Properties & applications of fiber reinforced concrete. Engineering Sciences,
1990. 2(1).
2.
Peled, A. and B. Mobasher. The pultrusion technology for the production of fabriccement composites. in Elsevier Ltd. 2003.
3.
Mobasher, B., Mechanics of fiber and textile reinforced cement composites. 2011: CRC
press.
4.
Mobasher, B. and A. Pivacek, A filament winding technique for manufacturing cement
based cross-ply laminates. Cement and Concrete Composites, 1998. 20(5): p. 405-415.