Quantifying the Fatigue Material Properties of UHPFRC with Steel Microfibers at Cracks
Publication: Journal of Structural Engineering
Volume 147, Issue 6
Abstract
The addition of steel fibers to concrete in ultrahigh-performance concrete (UHPC) to form ultrahigh-performance fiber-reinforced concrete (UHPFRC) has been shown to have a great benefit by substantially increasing the flexural capacities and ductilities at the ultimate limit state and reducing crack widths and increasing flexural rigidities at the serviceability limit state. This is because the fibers bridge a crack and consequently allow tensile stresses across the crack. Tests also have shown that tensile cyclic loads applied across a crack can reduce these benefits by allowing the crack to widen through a gradual debonding of the fibers. To quantify the behavior of UHPFRC post cracking, the fatigue behavior of steel microfiber concrete at a crack was studied through 33 tensile fatigue tests on precracked UHPFRC and 6 monotonic tests. An approach for processing the results based on the increase in crack width per cycle, that is the incremental set, was developed and can be applied to any UHPFRC that exhibits debonding. Three distinct cyclic behaviors were identified and quantified: no incremental set, such that there is no quantifiable damage due to cyclic loading; the incremental set is constant, such that there is quantifiable damage; and a rapid unstable increase in the incremental set.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Data Availability Statement
All data, models, and code generated or used during the study appear in the published article.
Acknowledgments
This material is based upon work supported by the Australian Research Council Discovery Project 190102650.
References
Abbas, S., M. L. Nehdi, and M. A. Saleem. 2016. “Ultra-high performance concrete: Mechanical performance, durability, sustainability and implementation challenges.” Int. J. Concr. Struct. Mater. 10 (3): 271–295. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40069-016-0157-4.
Azmee, N. M., and N. Shafiq. 2018. “Ultra-high performance concrete: From fundamental to applications.” Case Stud. Constr. Mater. 9 (Dec): 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cscm.2018.e00197.
Carlesso, D. M., A. de la Fuente, and S. H. P. Cavalaro. 2019. “Fatigue of cracked high performance fiber reinforced concrete subjected to bending.” Constr. Build. Mater. 220 (Sep): 444–455. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2019.06.038.
CEB (Comité Euro-International du Béton). 1996. RC elements under cyclic loading: State-of-the-art report. London: CEB.
Cornelissen, H. A. W. 1984. Fatigue failure of concrete in tension. Delft, Netherlands: Heron.
Germano, F., G. Tiberti, and G. Plizzari. 2016. “Post-peak fatigue performance of steel fiber reinforced concrete under flexure.” Mater. Struct. 49 (10): 4229–4245. https://doi.org/10.1617/s11527-015-0783-3.
González, D. C., R. Moradillo, J. Mínguez, J. A. Martínez, and M. A. Vicente. 2018. “Postcracking residual strengths of fiber-reinforced high-performance concrete after cyclic loading.” Struct. Concr. 19 (2): 340–351. https://doi.org/10.1002/suco.201600102.
Isojeh, B., M. El-Zeghayar, and F. J. Vecchio. 2017. “Fatigue behavior of steel fiber concrete in direct tension.” J. Mater. Civ. Eng. 29 (9): 04017130. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)MT.1943-5533.0001949.
Lee, M. K., and B. I. G. Barr. 2004. “An overview of the fatigue behaviour of plain and fibre reinforced concrete.” Cem. Concr. Compos. 26 (4): 299–305. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0958-9465(02)00139-7.
Makita, T., and E. Brühwiler. 2014. “Tensile fatigue behaviour of ultra-high performance fibre reinforced concrete (UHPFRC).” Mater. Struct. 47 (3): 475–491. https://doi.org/10.1617/s11527-013-0073-x.
Naaman, A. E., and H. Hammoud. 1998. “Fatigue characteristics of high performance fiber-reinforced concrete.” Cem. Concr. Compos. 20 (5): 353–363. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0958-9465(98)00004-3.
Oehlers, D. J., and M. A. Bradford. 1995. Composite steel and concrete structural members: Fundamental behaviour. Oxford: Pergamon.
Russell, H. G., and B. A. Graybeal. 2013. Ultra-high performance concrete: A state-of-the-art report for the bridge community. McLean, VA: Federal Highway Administration.
Sohail, M. G., B. Wang, A. Jain, R. Kahraman, N. G. Ozerkan, B. Gencturk, M. Dawood, and A. Belarbi. 2018. “Advancements in concrete mix designs: High-performance and ultrahigh-performance concretes from 1970 to 2016.” J. Mater. Civ. Eng. 30 (3): 04017310. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)MT.1943-5533.0002144.
Voo, Y. L., S. J. Foster, and C. C. Voo. 2015. “Ultrahigh-performance concrete segmental bridge technology: Toward sustainable bridge construction.” J. Bridge Eng. 20 (8): B5014001. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)BE.1943-5592.0000704.
Yang, I. H., C. Joh, and B.-S. Kim. 2010. “Structural behavior of ultra high performance concrete beams subjected to bending.” Eng. Struct. 32 (11): 3478–3487. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.engstruct.2010.07.017.
Zhang, J., H. Stang, and V. C. Li. 2000. “Experimental study on crack bridging in FRC under uniaxial fatigue tension.” J. Mater. Civ. Eng. 12 (1): 66–73. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)0899-1561(2000)12:1(66).
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Structural Engineering
Volume 147 • Issue 6 • June 2021
Copyright
© 2021 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Aug 19, 2020
Accepted: Feb 16, 2021
Published online: Apr 10, 2021
Published in print: Jun 1, 2021
Discussion open until: Sep 10, 2021
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.