1

MECHANICAL PROPERTIES OF FIBER REINFORCED CEMENTITIOUS

COMPOSITE WITH HIGH STRENGTH MATRIX ABOVE 400 N/MM2
R. Yanagida1, T. Nakamura2, K. Kono3 and J. Niwa2
1
Department of Civil Engineering, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo, Japan
2
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo, Japan
3
Central Research Laboratory, Taiheiyo Cement Corporation, Chiba, Japan
In recent years, a new cementitious composite with the compressive strength of 400 to 500 N/mm2
has
been developed in Japan. This cementitious composite provides an extremely high compressive
strength
(464 N/mm2) by using a normal pouring and heat-curing process under 200 °C. Therefore, it can
easily
make this cementitious composite practical. Based on the principles of micromeritics, multiple types
of
particles were packed as closely as possible in the cementitious composite. Constitution of binding
materials of this closest packed cementitious composite (CPC) was decided by the closest packing
theory
of Furnace so that the binding materials formed the maximum density grading. The purpose of this
study is to investigate the mechanical properties of this new cementitious composite.
In this study, to confirm the influence of the steel fibers on each mechanical properties, steel fibers
were
mixed into these specimens, then the compression test, splitting tensile test and three-point bending
test by use of notched beam were conducted. As the results, the compressive strength, Young’s
modules, Poisson’s ratio and tension softening curve of this cementitious material were confirmed.
In
addition, the finite element analysis were carried out and then the validity of an estimated tension
softening curve was verified.
Corresponding author’s email: Yanagida.r.aa@m.titech.ac.jp, JAPAN Phone; +81-3-5734-2584
Mechanical properties of fiber reinforced cementitious
Composite with high strength matrix above 400 N/mm2
R. Yanagida1, T. Nakamura2, K. Kono3, and J. Niwa2
1
Department of Civil Engineering, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo, Japan
2
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo, Japan
3
Central Research Laboratory, Taiheiyo Cement Corporation, Chiba, Japan
ABSTRACT: In recent years, a new cementitious material with the compressive strength of 400
to 500 N/mm2 has been developed. This material provides an extremely high compressive
strength (464 N/mm2) by using a normal pouring and forming techniques and heat-curing
process under 200 °C. The natural advantage of concrete which can make the desired shape
freely by pouring it into a form was preserved. However, the mechanical properties of this new
material and the influence of the steel fibers on each mechanical properties has not been
clarified yet. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the mechanical properties of this new
cementitious composite which reinforced by steel fibers for example compressive strength,
Young’s modules, Poisson’s ratio, fracture energy and tension softening curve.
1 INTRODUCTION
High strength concrete has rapidly been developed over the past decades, which makes it
possible to reduce the weight and cross section of the members in comparison with normal
strength concrete members. In the process of these technological developments for high
strength cementitious composite, the new cementitious material with the compressive
strength of 464 N/mm2 has been developed by Kono et al. (Kono 2015). This material provides
an extremely high compressive strength by using a normal pouring and forming techniques
and heat-curing process under 200 °C. Based on the principles of micromeritics, multiple types
of particles were packed as closely as possible in the cementitious material. This material
needs water-absorbing process and two-stage heat-curing process after the removal of
formwork, on the other hand, this material can become pore-free and also obtain the
extremely high compressive strength in consequence.
Meanwhile, cementitious materials have low tensile strength and also the same applies for this
kind of pore-free concrete (PFC), and we need to include the fibers into this kind of materials
to prevent the brittle failure. Therefore the mechanical properties of PFC should be
investigated before applying to the design of structural member. The major objective of this
study is to clarify the mechanical properties of fiber reinforced cementitious composite
materials with the highest strength matrix above 400 N/mm2. Compression test, strip-tensile
test and three-point bending test of PFC were conducted to investigate the compression
characteristics and tensile characteristics and also to confirm the influence of the steel fibers
on each mechanical properties.

2 EXPERIMENT & ANALYSIS OUTLINE

2.1 Specimen
Materials and mix proportion of PFC are presented in Tables 1 and 2. Constitution of binding
materials (B) of PFC was decided by the Furnace’s theory (Furnace 1931) so that the binding
materials formed the maximum density grading. In this study, the mixing volume ratio of each
binding materials of PFC is LC：Q：SF＝6：3：1. Steel fibers were mixed into this specimens,
and the mixing volume of the fiber were 1 vol.% or 2 vol.%. PFC were mixed using 30 L mixers.
After casting, sealed curing was conducted for 48 hours. After form removal, the deaeration
process was also carried out for 30 minutes to make the water absorb into specimens. In this
process, the specimens were completely immersed in water within a closed vessel, then the air
was removed from the specimens and also water was supplied to the interior of them by
reducing the pressure inside of the vessel. When the water absorbing process was finished, the
specimens were cured with steam (90 °C) for 48 hours, and a heat curing (0 %RH, 180 °C) for
48 hours.
2.2 Mechanical test
Figure 1(a) shows the measured items and the size of the specimen for compression test. The
compression tests were conducted by the 1000 kN universal loading machine, in accordance
with test method in the JIS A 1108 “Method of test for compressive strength of concrete”. The
static modulus of elasticity were also measured and calculated in accordance with the JIS A
1149 ”Method of test for static modulus of elasticity of concrete”.
In order to continually observe the load and strain relationship, strain gauges attached on the
surfaces of one end in the specimen, perpendicular to the direction of the force as shown in
Figure 1(b). This method was introduced in the guideline of Japan Society of Civil Engineers
“Recommendations for design and construction of ultra high strength fiber reinforced concrete
structures (Draft)”, which of strain value can identify exactly the moment of the first crack’s
occurance by tracking the discontinuity. The maximum stress is defined as a splitting-cylinder
strength, while the stress when the first crack occurred is defined as a cracking strength.
Three point bending tests were conducted based on JCI-S-002-2003 which was introduced by
Japan Concrete Institute (JCI). The specimen’s dimension was 400100100 mm as shown in
Figure 1(c). All specimens were notched by concrete saw at the mid-span after the curing
process, and then three-point bending tests of these beams were conducted. Two
displacement transducers and clip gauge were installed to measure the loading point
displacement (LPD) and the crack mouth opening displacement (CMOD) of beams during the
loading test. In addition, the fracture energy was calculated from the Load-CMOD curves based
on JCI-S-001-2003. In this study, these tests were continued until LPD reached 15 mm. Finally,
the tension softening curves were estimated by using the published program proposed by JCI.
The tension softening curves were estimated by the inverse analysis and the poly-linear
approximation using the data of the Load-LPD curves of notched beams.
2.3 Analytical method
In order to verify the validity of an estimated tension softening curves, the two dimensional
nonlinear FEM analysis using DIANA system (version 9.5) was conducted for notched beams. In
this analysis, a finite element model of interface element just above the notch were defined
based on discrete cracking model and the nonlinear material parameters were specified for
discrete cracking in the interface: the tensile strength, the tension softening curve from
experimental result. On the other hand, the concrete element was defined as a linear elastic
model so the Young’s modulus and Poisson’s ratio were the values from experimental results.
The size of the all mesh were approximately 2 mm for the squared mesh as shown in Figure 2.
Displacement control with Modified Newton-Raphson method was adopted to solve
equilibrium equations. When the variation of internal energy has become less than 0.01% of
the internal energy of the first iteration in the step, the iteration process was terminated to
move to the next step.
3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
3.1 Experimental results
The characteristic values of PFC obtained from compression test and splitting cylinder test
were shown in Table 3. The compressive strength of non-fiber reinforced specimen of PFC
(PFC-0) was 411 N/mm2, while that of PFC-1 and PFC-2 was 332.0 N/mm2 and 340.3 N/mm2. It
indicate the compressive strength of PFC-1 and PFC-2 was decreased by 19% and 17%
compared with that of PFC-0 due to the using of steel fiber. Moreover, the young’s modules of
PFC was larger than 50 kN/mm2 with the Poisson’s ratio about 0.18, which showed similar
values with UFC. Figure 3 shows the relationships between compressive stress and strain.
Stress-longitudinal strain curves of PFC show linear-elastic behavior up to the ultimate
strength, and the strain of the ultimate strength was more than 600010-6. The failure
behavior of all specimens for compression test was very brittle and some of the specimens
were divided into several parts after peak load in spite of the reinforcing by steel fiber.
The cracking strength of PFC was about 11 N/mm2. In contrast to cracking strength, the
splitting cylinder strength of PFC-2 was higher than that of PFC-1 because of the influence of
steel fiber. The characteristic values obtained from the bending test and tension softening
curves (TSC) are shown in Table 4. Figure 4 shows the Load-CMOD curves and Load-LPD curves
of PFC. In these graphs, the dotted line shows the result of each specimens and the solid line
shows the average of four specimens. When the mixing volume Vf became higher, the fracture
energy GF became higher. In this study, the fracture energy GF was estimated from the Load-
CMOD curves and the failure value of CMOD was assumed to be 5mm. Therefore, the real
value of the fracture energy GF of PFC must be higher.
The tension softening curves (TSC) estimated from poly-linear approximation using the data of
the Load-LPD curves of notched beams, were shown in Figure 5. The tensile strength ft at
theplateau and the crack width at the end of the plateau of tension softening curve for all PFC
with steel fibers were shown in Table 4. In addition, the values of the crack width which the
stress comes to 0 were estimated from the last two points of the tension softening curve by
extending straight line to zero-stress level based on the linear interpolation of the last two
point. In these tension softening curves, there were three portions: 1. the portion where the
tensile stress was decreased immediately just after the cracking, 2. the portion where the
stress was increased again due to the influence of the bridging effect of steel fibers, 3. The
portion where the stress slowly dropped to zero as the crack opening increased. In addition, as
the volume of the fiber became higher, the tensile strength ft at the plateau of tension
softening curves became higher. The value of the tensile strength ft at the plateau of PFC-2 was
twice as large as that of PFC-1. From the above reasons, the flexural ductility of the beams of
PFC can be improved by the mixing of steel fibers.
3.2 Analytical results
The load-LPD relationships of the two specimens PFC-1 and PFC-2 obtained in the experiment
and FEM analysis is shown in Figure 6. In PFC-2, the peak load of experimental result was lower
than that of analysis result. However, the load-LPD curve was almost similar to the
experimental result. Because of these results, the validity of tension softening curve of PFC-2
was verified.
In PFC-1, the load-LPD curve after second peak load was very similar to the experimental curve
while the peak load and the curve’s inclination just before the peak load were not similar to
the result of experiment. Therefore, it could be said that the post-peak behavior during the
bending test of PFC were able to be reproduced by the FEM analysis.
4 CONCLUSION
In this study, the mechanical properties of fiber reinforced cementitious composite materials
with the highest strength matrix above 400 N/mm2 (PFC) was investigated and the validity of
an estimated tension softening curves was verified. The summary of this study is as follows:
1) From the compression test of PFC, the compressive strength of PFC with steel fibers was
larger than 330 N/mm2. And the Young’s modules of PFC was larger than 50 kN/mm2 with
the Poisson’s ratio about 0.18. In addition, the relationships between compressive stress
and strain of PFC are almost linear, and the linearity of the stress-strain curves is
continued up to failure.
2) As the mixing volume of the fibers became higher, the splitting cylinder strength and
fracture energy GF became higher. On the other hand, the cracking strength of all
specimens were about 11 N/mm2. In the tension softening curves estimated from the
results of the bending test, the tensile stress was decreased immediately just after the
cracking, then the stress was increased again due to the influence of the bridging effect of
steel fibers. Finally, the tensile stress slowly dropped to zero as the crack opening
increased in these tension softening curves.
3) The two dimensional nonlinear FEM analysis using DIANA system (version 9.5) was
conducted in order to reproduce the results of three point bending test and verify the
validity of each mechanical values and the estimated tension softening curves of PFC. The
post-peak behavior in the load-displacement curves from analysis results were almost
similar to that of experimental results.