Low-velocity impact of hot-pressed PVA fiber-reinforced alkali-activated stone wool composites

This study evaluates the effects of the manufacturing process and fiber reinforcement on low-velocity impact response of the recently developed PVA fiber-reinforced alkali-activated stone wool composites. To this end, reinforced and unreinforced specimens manufactured by hot-pressing were compared with those oven curing. The results revealed a similar impact response for the hot-pressed composite produced at 120 °C for 3 h and its counterpart cured at ambient pressure at 60 °C oven for 24 h. Furthermore, fiber reinforcement significantly improves the impact resistance of the hot-pressed composites showing about a 50% increase in peak load and a 40% reduction in penetration compared to the unreinforced materials. In view of the development of the hot-pressed composites and potential applications, accurate predictive models are of extremely importance, hence the material mechanical behavior was here simulated by adopting the concrete damage plasticity model to predict the low-velocity impact response of both unreinforced and reinforced materials and successfully verified for the scaling-up purpose.