Flexural behaviour of steel fibre reinforced self-compacting concrete laminar structures

Abstract

A high strength Steel Fibre Reinforced Self-Compacting Concrete (SFRSCC) of high ductility was developed. To evaluate the contribution of steel fibre reinforcement for the flexural resistance of laminar structures, an experimental program was carried out with slab strips of distinct longitudinal reinforcement ratio ( sl ρ ), submitted to four point loads. A total of twelve slab strips were tested, grouped in three series of distinct sl ρ (0.2, 0.36 and 0.56). Each series is composed of four slab strips, two of them without fibre reinforcement, and the other two with 45 kg of hooked end steel fibres per cubic meter of concrete. From the force-deflection relationship the contribution of steel fibres for the slab load carrying capacity at the serviceability and ultimate limit states was assessed. An equivalence between the content of steel fibres and the percentage of a virtual conventional longitudinal steel bars was established. Taking the experimental results and performing an inverse analysis, a stress-strain diagram was obtained to characterize the post-cracking behaviour of the developed SFRSCC. The present work describes the experimental and the numerical research carried out, and presents and analyzes the main obtained results.