Compressive fatigue damage and failure mechanism of fiber reinforced cementitious material with high ductility

The fiber reinforced cementitious material with high ductility has potential use in particular environments and structures that undergo repeated or fatigue loads. In this study, a series of monotonic and fatigue tests were performed to investigate the compressive fatigue behavior of this material. It is found that the fatigue life of this material is higher than that of plain concrete and steel fiber reinforced concrete under the same stress level. In addition, the failure deformation of fiber reinforced cementitious material with high ductility under fatigue load was larger than the monotonic envelope, while the envelope coincides with the monotonic loading curve for concrete or fiber reinforced concrete. The failure surface and damage process were investigated and a new failure mode of polyvinyl alcohol fiber with crushed end was discovered. The fatigue failure surface could be divided into three regions, including fatigue source region, transition region and crack extension region.