Abstract:
Nowadays most of the production of engineering materials are focus on eco-friendly concept
due to environmental issues which are arise by traditional engineering materials. Sorel cement
which was discovered by Stanislas Sorel in 1867 is used for many construction applications
nowadays. Since this is an environmental friendly product it has a potential of replacing
asbestoses and Portland cement. But due to some of its poor properties, applications of soral
cement are more concentrated in to indoor usages. Magnesium Oxide and Magnesium Chloride
are the main raw materials of this Sorel cement mixture. To use this Sorel cement mixture in
outdoor construction applications, cured cement mixture should be used. Both ordinary Portland
cement and Sorel cement has better compressive strength but weaker in tensile strength. Steel
reinforcement are used to Portland cement in order to overcome that problem. But steel
reinforcements cause corrosion in Sorel cement due to chloride iron which comes from
Magnesium chloride. This research mainly focused on possibility of using natural fibers like
Bamboo, Coir and Arica as a reinforcement material for Sorel cement with other possible
additives to produced composite board (sheet). Water absorption, water permeability, density
and flexural strength tests results show effects of those additives. Density value of asbestos
reinforced samples is 1.6 gcm-3 and that value is almost same for all of the samples (with natural
reinforcements). Sample with Arica fibers showed minimum value of 1.18 gcm-3 while
minimum water absorption of 2.74% showed from coir fiber sample with fly ash additives. In
contrast, asbestos based sample shows 19.37% of water absorption. Water permeability of all
the test samples (both asbestos and natural reinforcement) showed smaller value and it can be
considered as zero. Maximum flexural strength was reported by the coir fiber based sample and
the average value is 4.89 MPa while asbestos based samples having 20.09 MPa. Further studies
is going on to enhance the flexural strength of sheets.
