Evaluation of the strand in cement (SIC) test for GRCs with improved durability

Even today the durability of glass fibre reinforced concrete composites (GRC) remains a widely studied topic. The accelerated ageing technique and the strand-in-cement (SIC) test method were developed to study the durability of GRCs in the early days. Within this paper it is shown that the standard SIC specimen preparation is not always suitable to evaluate the durability of new GRCs. A modified SIC set-up is proposed and the influence of the number of tested specimens per series on the trustworthiness of the results is discussed. Moreover, the modified SIC set-up will be used within two sequences of accelerated ageing: the first sequence of series of specimens contains an ordinary Portland cement (OPC) mixture and the second series a modified matrix. The usefulness of “accelerated ageing” is discussed and commented for both series.