Investigation of bond performance of reinforced fly ash-based Geopolymer concrete using experiments and numerical analysis

This study evaluates the bond performance of reinforced fly ash-based geopolymer concrete by using experiments and numerical analysis. Three types of mixture proportions along with two types of reinforcement diameter, (d12, ribbed bar) and (d14, smooth bar) mm, were selected for experimental work. The bond behaviour of reinforced geopolymer concrete is determined using the pullout test, and Finite Element Analysis (FEA). The test data indicated that the bond strength of reinforced fly ash-based geopolymer concrete increases with the increase in compressive strength. The concrete cover to diameter ratio (c/db) increases from 4.86 to 5.75 and the bond strength of all three groups of samples also increases. Besides, the bond stress-slip curves obtained by the ABAQUS software closely match the results from experimental works. Furthermore, the parametric analyses show that when the compressive strength of geopolymer concreteincreases, the bond strength of reinforced fly ash-based geopolymer concrete increases. These results are consistent with the test data.