ABSTRACT
Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) is a byproduct of hydrocarbon which is commonly used for plastic bottles and containers. Research has been carried out all over the world on the recycling of this material since it is a non-biodegradable substance. This work researched on the use of recycled PET rod as an alternative reinforcement to the conventional steel in reinforced concrete beams. The PET rod was obtained by recycling waste plastic container in an extrusion machine into an 8 mm diameter rod. Sixteen (16) number 150 mm × 150 mm × 500 mm concrete beams were subjected to flexural strength test, six were reinforced with 12mm diameter high strength steel, another six was reinforced with 8mm diameter PET rod, while the last set (4 numbers) without any reinforcement served as the control. The beams were designated as B1, B2 and B3 respectively. The mechanical test on the recycled PET rod showed that the tensile strength was 223 N/mm2 while the young modulus was 13,642 N/mm2. The flexural strength test result for beam B1 at 28 days test was 75.25 N/mm2, B2 was 38.53 N/mm2 while beam B3 was 15.68 N/mm2. The above result showed that beam reinforced with PET rod can be used for low load carrying structure, since it performed better than the sample without any reinforcement.
