Development of basalt textile reinforced geopolymer panels for sustainable building construction

This presentation reports the outcomes from a research program aiming to develop a new type of high-performance thin wall panel with green technology for sustainable building construction. In the project basalt textile will be used as the reinforcement of a geopolymer matrix to form a lightweight, high-strength, durable, fire-resistant and environmental friendly high-performance thin composite wall panel. This new type of composite panel has great potential to become an alternative to the widely used glass fiber reinforced cement (GRC) panel in the cladding systems of buildings, the exterior and interior skins of concrete sandwich walls and convential fire-resistant panels. Use of textiles to replace short fibers and steel reinforcements makes the formed panel light weight, high strength and non-corrosive. Use of geopolymer cement to replace ordinalry Portland cement (OPC) leads to a significant decrease carbon dioxide emissions, fitting well the sustainble building concept.
The research program covers a wide range of technical issues including the manufacturing of basalt textiles, optimal design for the mixes of fly ash- and slag-based geopolymer mortars, mechanical tests on short fiber-reinforced slag-based geopolymer mortar, durability of bond of basaslt textiles in slag-based geopolymer matrix, and slag-based geopolymer moratar panels subjected to elevated temperatue. It was concluded that basalt textile reinforced geopolymer thin wall panels have great potential in use for building construction. However, many important issues from material production to design guide development need to further addressed before its reliable implementation in pratice.