ABSTRACT
While ECC possesses excellent mechanical properties, relative high cost remains one of the major obstacles for wider commercial use. Most of the developed PVA-ECCs used microsilica sand with a maximum size of 200 μm, which is relatively expensive and difficult to obtain comparing to available local sand. The influence of aggregate type and grain size on the tensile ductility and mechanical properties of ECC have been investigated. Sahmaran et al. indicated that crushed sand and gravel sand with relatively large grain size (1.19 or 2.38 mm) could be successfully used to produce ECC (Sahmaran et al., 2009). The negative effect of the increase in matrix toughness could be alleviated by using a high volume mineral admixture, such as fly ash. Sherir investigated the structural performance of PVA-ECC using local crushed sand with a maximum grain size of 1.18 mm under static and fatigue flexural loading (Sherir et al., 2015). That study showed that crushed sand seemed to have increased the resistance against fatigue damage exhibiting higher residual strength and deflection capacity than the PVA-ECC with silica sand, especially at high fatigue cycles up to 1,000,000.
