A STUDY ON STYRENE - BUTADIENE RUBBER (SBR) LATEX MODIFIED FERROCEMENT

Ferrocement is a composite construction material which consists of highperformance mortar and meshes. Ferrocementis a good technique in the field of strengthening of existing structural members. However, there is a chance for corrosionof steel meshes used for ferrocement, since the cover thickness is very less. In the present study, SBR latex modifiedferrocement technique was introduced for the laminate preparation and the results were compared with normalferrocement. In this work, Styrene-Butadiene Rubber (SBR) polymer was added to the mortar to increase thestrengthening performance and to avoid the corrosion. Six numbers of ferrocement laminate were cast and tested in thelaboratory, out of which three ferrocement laminates with SBR latex and remaining three are ferro-cement laminatewithout SBR latex (normal ferrocement laminate). The sizes of laminates are 550 mm length, 150 mm width and 20 mmthickness. All the laminates were tested under a two point loading system. The ferro-cement laminate with SBR latexshows better strength and improved flexural capacity comparedto the normal ferrocement. The experimental resultsproved that the development of strength, deformability and fracture properties of laminate with SBR latex were morewhen compared to conventional ferro-cement.