Investigation of the crack opening and damage monitoring of textile reinforced cementitious composites using Digital Image Correlation

The stress-strain behaviour of glass textile reinforced cementitious composites in tension is highly non- linear. Focusing at the multiple cracking stage, cracks are initiate and propagate across the cementitious matrix. The opening of these cracks is influenced by the volume fraction of reinforcement, the strength of the matrix, the geometry of the specimen, the debonding phenomena at the matrix- fibre interface and several other parameters. Investigation of the strain profile and the crack width, on this phase of tensile loading, is done in two different composites: E- glass textile reinforced inorganic phosphate cements and AR- glass textile reinforced fine- grained cements. In both cases, Digital Image Correlation (DIC) is used to visualize the crack pattern and the strain distribution. This initial research for a system with low crack width (lower than 100?m) under tension would be used for the future application of self- healing mechanism on cementitious composites.