Construction

and Building

Construction and Building Materials 18 (2004) 669–673

MATERIALS
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Mechanical properties of high-strength steel fiber-reinforced concrete

a,* b
P.S. Song , S. Hwang
a
Department of Civil Engineering, Dahan Institute of Technology, Sincheng, Hualien 971, Taiwan, ROC
b
Department of System Engineering, Chung Cheng Institute of Technology, National Defense University, Dashi, Taoyuan 335, Taiwan, ROC
Received 7 August 2002; received in revised form 13 April 2004; accepted 14 April 2004
Available online 17 June 2004

Abstract

The marked brittleness with low tensile strength and strain capacities of high-strength concrete (HSC) can be overcome by the
addition of steel fibers. This paper investigated the mechanical properties of high-strength steel fiber-reinforced concrete. The
properties included compressive and splitting tensile strengths, modulus of rupture, and toughness index. The steel fibers were added
at the volume fractions of 0.5%, 1.0%, 1.5%, and 2.0%. The compressive strength of the fiber-reinforced concrete reached a max-
imum at 1.5% volume fraction, being a 15.3% improvement over the HSC. The splitting tensile strength and modulus of rupture of
the fiber-reinforced concrete improved with increasing the volume fraction, achieving 98.3% and 126.6% improvements, respectively,
at 2.0% volume fraction. The toughness index of the fiber-reinforced concrete improved with increasing the fraction. The indexes I5 ,
I10 , and I30 registered values of 6.5, 11.8, and 20.6, respectively, at 2.0% fraction. Strength models were established to predict the
compressive and splitting tensile strengths and modulus of rupture of the fiber-reinforced concrete. The models give predictions
matching the measurements.
Ó 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Steel fibers; High-strength concrete; High-strength steel fiber-reinforced concrete

1. Introduction excellent resistance to aggressive environments and dis-

The engineering characteristics and economic ad-
vantages of high-strength concrete (HSC) are distinct
from conventional concrete, thereby popularizing the
HSC concrete in a large variety of applications in the
construction industry. Used for high-rise buildings,
HSC avoids the unacceptable oversized columns on the
lower floors, allowing large column spacing and usable
floor space, or increasing the number of possible stories
without detracting from lower floors [1]. Used for long-
span bridges, HSC reduces the dead load of bridge
girders for fewer and lighter bridge piers and thus en-
ables greater underpass clearance widths. HSC inspires
substantial savings in expenditure on bridge mainte-
nance, while prolonging the serviceable life of the
bridges [2]. Further, HSC possesses uniform high den-
sity and very low impermeability, endowing itself with
*
Corresponding author. Tel./fax: +886-3-8263936.
E-mail address: pssong@ms01.dahan.edu.tw (P.S. Song).
integrating agencies, and benefiting the durability of
concrete buildings and structures [3,4].
The comparatively higher compressive strength of
HSC is an attractive profit; whereas, the strength be-
haves against the ductility of the concrete by welcoming
brittleness pronouncedly [5]. The HSC always possesses
a steeper descending stress–strain curve in compression
than does the normal strength concrete. The rapid de-
crease in compressive strength in the post-peak load
region brings about a pronouncedly brittle mode of
failure [6]. To foster the compressive strength without
sacrificing the ductility, a strategy is to add discrete steel
fibers as reinforcement in HSC [7]. As the high-strength
steel fiber-reinforced concrete (HSFRC) hardens,
shrinks, or bears service loads to develop cracks and to
propagate them, the fibers evenly distributed throughout
the composite intersect, block, and even arrest the
propagating cracks. This way, the addition of fibers
contributes strength to the concrete [8]. First, Khaloo
and Kim [9] investigated the strength improvement to

0950-0618/$ - see front matter Ó 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2004.04.027
670 P.S. Song, S. Hwang / Construction and Building Materials 18 (2004) 669–673
HSC containing 0.5%, 1.0%, and 1.5% volume fractions
of steel fibers, declaring that compressive and splitting
tensile strengths improved to 1.0% fraction, whereas the
modulus of rupture did up to 1.5%. Eren and C ß elik [10]
studied the strength-producing effect of steel fibers and
silica fume in HSC, indicating that the fiber volume and
fiber aspect ratio governed the compressive strength of
the concrete. Chunxiang and Patnaikuni [8] indicated
that the compressive strength of HSFRC increased with
maturity, which increased 24% in the aged 76 day
HSFRC. According to Marar et al. [11], at each fiber
aspect ratio, the compressive strength of HSFRC im-
proved with the increase in fiber volume. And as far as
Daniel and Loukili [12] declared, the compressive
strength of HSFRC held 15% advantage over its HSC
partner. The foregoing discussions indicate the steel fi-
ber additions primarily exerting the pick-up effect on the
compressive strength. However, the additions play also
devotedly in developing splitting tensile and flexural
strengths.
This paper further investigated the strength im-
proving potentials of HSFRC containing 0.5%, 1.0%,
1.5%, and 2.0% volume of hooked-end steel fibers in
comparison with the plain high-strength counterpart,
and established models predicting the behavior of
HSFRC under compression, splitting tension, and
flexure.
2. Experimental program
2.1. Materials
Type I cement, river sand with a fineness modulus of
3.1, and crushed basalt of 19 mm maximum size were
used. Silica fume used was a commercially available
byproduct of the production of silicon metal and fer-
rosilicon alloys, which improved concrete properties in
fresh and hardened states. To improve the workability
of concrete, a high-range water-reducing admixture
(superplasticizer) was employed during mixing opera-
tions. The cement, silica fume, water, superplasticizer,
river sand and crushed basalt of 430, 43, 133, 9, 739 and
1052 kg/m3 were used to make the HSC. The slump of
the concrete was 60 mm. The hooked-end steel fibers
were made of mild carbon steel. The fibers have an av-
erage length of 35 mm, nominal diameter of 0.55 mm,
and the aspect ratio of 64. These fibers are available in
bundles of about 30 fibers, which were fibrillated with
water-soluble glue to ensure immediate dispersion in
concrete during mixing.
2.2. Preparation of samples
In the production of concrete, the constituent mate-
rials were initially mixed without fibers. The fibers were
then added in small amounts to avoid fiber balling and
to produce the concrete with uniform material consis-
tency and good workability. For concrete mixes with a
2.0% volume of fibers, extra time was required for
mixing. The freshly mix steel fiber-reinforced concrete
was placed in two equal layers into a cylinder mold to
cast a standard 150
300 mm cylindrical concrete
specimen for a compressive strength test and a splitting
tensile test, and into a 150
150
530 mm beam mold
for a flexure strength test. Each layer was consolidated
using a vibrating table. At the end of 24 h after con-
solidating, the specimen was removed from the mold
and cured in water at 73  3 °F for 28 days. And then a
strength test was performed.
2.3. Test methods
The compressive strength test, performed on 15 of
the standard test cylinders, followed ASTM C39 test
for compressive strength of cylindrical concrete speci-
mens. The cylinders were loaded, in a testing machine
under load control, at the rate of 0.3 MPa/s until
failure.
The splitting tensile test, run on 15 of the test cyl-
inders, was in accordance with the ASTM C496 test for
splitting tensile strength of cylindrical concrete speci-
mens, although ACI committee 544.2R hardly recom-
mends the use of the test on fiber-reinforced concrete.
The running arose because the ratio of fiber length to
cylinder diameter took a low value of 0.23 in the work
and because some investigators have shown that the
ASTM C496 test is applicable to fiber-reinforced con-
crete specimen [9,13]. In the test, load applications
were continuous and shockless, at a constant rate
of 900 kPa/min splitting tensile stress until specimen
failure.
The flexural strength (modulus of rupture, MOR)
test, conducted using 15 test beams under third-point
loading, followed the ASTM C1018 test for flexural
toughness and first-crack strength of fiber-reinforced
concrete. The mid-span deflection was the average of the
ones detected by the transducers through contact with
brackets attached to the beam specimen. The testing
machine ran to increase the deflection at a constant rate;
the load–deflection relation recorded using an X –Y
plotter.
3. Results and discussion
Table 1 presents the strength test results on HSFRC
and HSC. Each strength test result was the average for
15 test specimens. The compressive strength, splitting
tensile strength, and modulus of rupture of HSFRC
improved to different extents in response to the fiber
volume fractions.
 P.S. Song, S. Hwang / Construction and Building Materials 18 (2004) 669–673 671

Table 1
Strength test results and strength-effectiveness on HSFRC and HSC
Fiber volume Compressive strength Splitting tensile strength Modulus of rupture
fraction (%)
Measured Strength- Measured Strength- Measured Strength-
(MPa) effectivenessa (%) (MPa) effectivenessa (%) (MPa) effectivenessa (%)
0 85 – 5.8 – 6.4 –
0.5 91 7.1 6.9 19.0 8.2 28.1
1.0 95 11.8 8.7 50.0 10.1 57.8
1.5 98 15.3 10.8 86.2 12.3 92.2
2.0 96 12.9 11.5 98.3 14.5 126.6
a
Strength-effectiveness ¼ HSFRC strengthHSC strength
HSC strength
100%.

3.1. Compressive strength pressive strength improvement of HSFRC ranged from

7.1% to 15.3% at the volume fractions of 0.5% to 2.0%,
The compressive strength development of HSFRC comparable to the improvements of 4.3–10.4% for nor-
versus HSC appears Fig. 1, declaring that the com- mal-strength concrete at the same fractions [14].
pressive strength fc0 of HSC was 85 MPa and of HSFRC Following from the compressive strength test results,
provided an improvement at each volume fraction. The the compressive strength fcf0 of HSFRC was predicted
improvement, as the strength-effectiveness in Table 1, using the compressive strength fc0 of HSC and the fiber
was 7.1% at 0.5% fraction, 11.8% at 1.0% fraction, volume fraction Vf , and was expressed as
15.3% at 1.5% fraction, and reduced to 12.9% at 2.0%
fcf0 ðMPaÞ ¼ fc0 þ AVf þ BVf2 : ð1Þ
fraction, being a reduction small compared to the
maximum improvement at 1.5% fraction. The com- Substituting fc0 ¼ 85 MPa in Eq. (1) and applying the
regression analysis gave
fcf0 ðMPaÞ ¼ 85 þ 15:12Vf  4:71Vf2 : ð2Þ
100
The compressive strength predictions using Eq. (2)
agreed favorably with the test results, as in Table 2. The
Compressive strength (MPa)

95 prediction errors run below 1.02%.

90
3.2. Splitting tensile strength

The development of splitting tensile strength of

85 HSFRC at various volume fractions is shown in Fig. 2;
compared to HSC, the strength of HSFRC improved
80 with increasing the volume fraction. From the strength-
Measurements
effectiveness in Table 1, the improvement started from
Predictions f'cf = 85 + 15.12Vf - 4.71Vf2
19% at 0.5% fraction and expanded to 98.3% at 2.0%
75
fraction.
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0
The splitting tensile strength ftf of HSFRC
pffiffiffiffi was pre-
Fiber volume fraction Vf (%)
dicted by using the compressive strength fc0 of HSC
Fig. 1. Effect of fiber volume on compressive strength. and the volume fraction Vf , and was given as follows:

Table 2
Comparison of predicted and measured values for compressive and splitting tensile strengths and modulus of rupture
Fiber volume Compressive strength Splitting tensile strength Modulus of rupture
fraction (%)
Predicted Measured Prediction Predicted Measured Prediction Predicted Measured Prediction
(MPa) (MPa) errora (%) (MPa) (MPa) Error (%) (MPa) (MPa) error (%)
0 85 85 0 5.8 5.8 0 6.4 6.4 0
0.5 91 91 0 7.3 6.9 5.80 8.2 8.2 0
1.0 95 95 0 8.8 8.7 1.15 10.2 10.1 0.99
1.5 97 98 )1.02 10.3 10.8 )4.63 12.3 12.3 0
2.0 96 96 0 11.7 11.5 1.74 14.5 14.5 0
a
Prediction error ¼ predictedmeasured
valuemeasured
value
value

100%.
672 P.S. Song, S. Hwang / Construction and Building Materials 18 (2004) 669–673

12 Table 1 indicates that the MOR values were higher by

28.1%, 57.8%, 92.2%, and 126.6% at the fractions of
Splitting tensile strength (MPa)

11 0.5%, 1.0%, 1.5%, and 2.0%, respectively, compared to

the HSC.
10
The MOR value frfpofffiffiffiffi HSFRC was related to the
9 compressive strength fc0 of HSC and the volume
fraction Vf and was given as
8 pffiffiffiffi
frf ðMPaÞ ¼ A fc0 þ BVf þ CVf2 : ð5Þ
7
Again, substituting fc0 ¼ 85 MPa in Eq. (5) and applying
Measurements
6 the regression analysis gave
Predictions ftf = 5.8 + 3.01Vf - 0.02Vf 2
5 frf ðMPaÞ ¼ 6:4 þ 3:43Vf þ 0:32Vf2 : ð6Þ
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0
Fiber volume fraction Vf (%) To the HSC, p Eq.
ffiffiffiffi (6) givepan
ffiffiffiffiffi MOR value of 6.4 MPa
equal to 0:69 fc0 ¼ ð0:69 85Þ. p The
ffiffiffiffi coefficient of 0.69
Fig. 2. Effect of fiber volume on splitting tensile strength. lies slightly above that of 0:63 fc0 obtained by ACI pffiffiffiffi
318 for p normal
ffiffiffiffi and HSCs and below those of 0:9 fc0
pffiffiffiffi and 1:0 fc0 obtained by Nilson [17] and Wafa and
ftf ðMPaÞ ¼ A fc0 þ BVf þ CVf2 : ð3Þ Ashour [16], respectively, and come close to 0.68 by
Khaloo and Kim [9] for HSC. The MOR values of
Substituting fc0 ¼ 85 MPa in Eq. (3) and applying the
HSFRC, predicted using Eq. (6), are presented in Table
regression analysis gave
2. These MOR values predicted approach the measured
ftf ðMPaÞ ¼ 5:8 þ 3:01Vf  0:02Vf2 : ð4Þ ones.
At Vf ¼ 0%, Eq. (4) gives the HSC a value of
pffiffiffiffi ftf ¼ 5:8
pffiffiffiffiffi 3.4. Flexural toughness
MPa, equal to that given by 0:63 fc0 ð¼ 0:63 85Þ. The
coefficient of 0.63 runs near 0.54 derived by ACI 363
Flexural toughness is the energy absorbed in de-
[15], 0.58 by Wafa and Ashour [16], 0.67 by Khaloo and
flecting a beam a specified amount, being the area under
Kim [9], and 0.68 by Nilson [17]. Eq. (4) shows a satis-
a load–deflection (P –d) curve for the 150
150
530
factory fit to the splitting tensile test results at various
mm steel fibrous beam tested in third-point bending.
fiber fractions, as Table 2 shows.
Index toughness I for steel fiber-reinforced concrete
reflects the improvement in flexural toughness over the
3.3. Modulus of rupture
nonfiber-reinforced concrete, being the flexural tough-
ness at a specified deflection divided by that at the first-
The MOR for HSFRC at various volume fractions
crack deflection d of nonfiber-reinforced concrete. The
appears in Fig. 3. And the strength-effectiveness in
widely estimated indexes are I5 at 3d, I10 at 5:5d, and, I30
at 15:5d [18]. All the three indexes reached unity,
assuming that the nonfiber-reinforced matrix is elastic-
16
brittle. These indexes increased their values with in-
creasing volume fraction. The I5 , I10 and I30 values were
6.5, 11.8, and 20.6, respectively, at the fraction of 2.0%
14
Modulus of rupture (MPa)

(see Table 3).

12

10
Table 3
Toughness index at various fiber volume fractions
8 Fiber volume fraction (%) Toughness index
Measurements
I5 I10 I30
Predictions frf = 6.4 + 3.43Vf + 0.32Vf2
6 0 1.0 1.0 1.0
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 0.5 3.0 4.8 8.2
1.0 3.3 6.2 12.4
Fiber volume fraction Vf (%) 1.5 4.2 8.3 17.8
2.0 6.5 11.8 20.6
Fig. 3. Effect of fiber volume on modulus of rupture.
 P.S. Song, S. Hwang / Construction and Building Materials 18 (2004) 669–673
4. Conclusions
1. The compressive strength of HSC improved with ad-
ditions of steel fibers at various volume fractions. The
strength showed a maximum at 1.5% fraction but a
slight decrease at 2% fraction compared to 1.5%,
still remaining 12.9% higher than before the fiber
addition.
2. The splitting tensile strength and modulus of rupture
of HSFRC both improved with increasing fiber vol-
ume fraction. The splitting tensile strength ranged
from 19.0% to 98.3% higher for the fractions from
0.5% to 2.0%. And the modulus of rupture ranged
from 28.1% to 126.6% higher for the fraction from
0.5% to 2.0%.
3. The strength-effectiveness showed at each volume
fraction a maximum for modulus of rupture, fol-
lowed by splitting tensile strength, and compressive
strength.
4. The strength models developed for HSFRC predicts
the compressive and splitting tensile strengths and
modulus of rupture accurately.
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