Evaluation of the Mechanical Behavior of Intradosal Plating Brick and Cement Joists with UHTSS Galvanized Steel Fiber Fabrics and Thixotropic Structural Mineral Geomortar Certified EN 1504 for Civil Applications

Abstract

The research project aims to provide an overview of the use of the Digital Image Correlation (DIC) methodology, in relation to composite materials, through the exposure of joists made during the research activity and from the results obtained from the displacement and deformation fields of a region of interest (abbreviation ROI, from “region of interest”) of a joist subjected to a flexural test by means of a image processing. This study is based on an Research Activity made at the Material Testing Laboratory - University of San Marino in 2016 based on flexure tests on brick and cement joists with intradosal plating with UHTSS galvanized steel fiber fabrics and thixotropic structural mineral geomortar certified EN 1504, followed by the application of the DIC (Digital Image Correlation) method with the use of an opensource program for MATLAB for the correlation of 2D digital images in association with the Comsol Multiphysics software have allowed the achievement of this goal. The final part of this research project concerns the design and performance of flexure tests, to investigate the accuracy of the DIC technique for the case of intradosal brick and cement joists with intradosal plating with UHTSS galvanized steel fiber fabrics and thixotropic structural mineral geomortar certified EN 1504 for Civil Applications, and in this phase, the validation of the results obtained by the DIC method applied becomes useful. The mechanical characterization focused on three-point bending tests, with varying support spans to investigate the flexural properties and failure mechanisms. The variations in support span provided insights into the transition from fiber-dominated to matrix-dominated failure, offering a comprehensive understanding of the structural response under different loading conditions.