ABSTRACT

In engineering construction field concrete has a main role to perform but has not sufficient capability to keep up tensile stresses, brittle mode of failure, cracking etc. Researchers had worked a lot to find a feasible and economic solution to improve some weak properties of concrete. For this reason, ordinary steel as concrete reinforcement material is popular choice, which is being used in addition to that, many other types of fibers are being used, after extensive research.
The aim of this research study is to utilize jute fibers in concrete, which is prepared from used jute burlaps with different percentages to improve the strength of plain concrete, for this purpose forty numbers of beam specimen were cast to determine flexural strength behavior of beams.
Addition of jute fiber in concrete mix was done by dry weight with 0%, 0.5%, 1.0%, 1.5%, 2.0%, 2.5%, 3.0%, and 3 .5%. From the test results it can be seen that flexural strength of concrete increases up to 6.89% with the addition of jute fibers from 0 .5% to 1.0%. While on further addition of jute fibers in the mix, flexural strength of beams was not increased.
It was noticed that workability of concrete mix decreases with the addition of jute fibers more than 1%.
However, the optimum fiber content seems to be 1% as that proportion improves flexural strength up to 6.89%, as compared to virgin concrete, and mix remain workable up to that percentage.