The effect of GRP waste fibre on the bending strength of cement
composites is shown in Table 4, where R1, R2 and R3 are replicate
test results. Results revealed that the mean bending strength in
terms of modules of rupture (MOR) of 12 mm thick panelsdeveloped using 5% GRP waste fibre attained 16.55 N/mm2 with
a standard deviation of 1.12. The bending strength of the 12 mm
thick panel with 5% GRP waste fibre was 46% higher than that of
8 mm thick panels. Application of GRP waste fibre increased the
bending strength of architectural cladding panel about 36% over
control specimens. Moreover, with the application of 5% GRP waste
fibre, the bending strength of the 8 mm thick panel increased about
25% as compared to without GRP waste fibre. Since, the quantity of
cement used in this study was lower than that of the normally used
cement to sand ratio (i.e. 1:0.5 to 1:1), the bending strength was
found to be lower than the conventional and commercially available
products which is in concurrence with the work of Bentur and
Mindess [10]. Moreover, the GRP waste fibre characterisation
results from this study revealed that the GRP waste fibre sample
had a wide particle size ranging from 500 micrometre to 2 mm.
Consistent quality of GRP waste fibre was expected to improve the
bending strength of cement composites.