An economical ultra-high ductile engineered cementitious composite with large amount of coarse river sand

•Ordinary river sand with a maximum size of 4750 µm is selected in this study.•The strain of river sand ECC (s/b = 0.55) is more than 9%.•The compressive strength of river sand ECC is from 45 MPa to 63.65 MPa.•When mechanical properties is the same, the cost in rive sand ECC decreases by 10%.•River sand ECC can achieve great mechanical properties and good economy.