Bending and Uniaxial Tensile Tests on Concrete Reinforced with Hybrid Steel Fibers
Publication: Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering
Volume 17, Issue 5
Abstract
Based on the idea of taking simultaneous advantage of the effects of different types of fibers, new materials called hybrid fiber reinforced concretes have been developed by combining fibers of different geometry and material. In the present paper, the benefits in terms of concrete toughness from a combination of micro- and macrosteel fibers are evaluated under both bending and uniaxial tensile tests on specimens of different sizes. Experimental results are very sensitive to the strain gradient in the cracked section, to the fiber geometry and to the area of the cracked surface. In fact, a larger scatter in the experimental results was observed in specimens with smaller cracked surfaces where a greater variation of the macrofiber density occurred. For this reason, beside the size effects, the fiber size and the dimension of the cracked section markedly influence the characteristic value of the fracture parameters. A numerical simulation based on nonlinear fracture mechanics of the experimental test was carried out in order to better identify the fiber contribution in the fracture propagation.
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Acknowledgments
A special acknowledgment goes to Professor Nemkumar Banthia for his useful suggestions and friendly encouragement in doing research on hybrid fibers. The longer fibers were provided by Maccaferri (Bologna, Italy) whereas the shorter fibers were provided by La Matassina (Isola Vicentina, VI, Italy). The writers would also like to thank Mr. Andrea Del Barba and the technicians of the materials testing laboratory of the University of Brescia. A special acknowledgment goes to M.Sc. Paolo Martinelli for his assistance in carrying out the experiments and in reducing the data.
References
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering
Volume 17 • Issue 5 • October 2005
Pages: 519 - 527
Copyright
© 2005 ASCE.
History
Received: Feb 23, 2004
Accepted: Jul 20, 2004
Published online: Oct 1, 2005
Published in print: Oct 2005
Notes
Note. Associate Editor: Kiang-Hwee Tan
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