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Abstract
Fiber Reinforced Concrete (FRC) is a concrete containing fibrous material
which increases its structural integrity. It contains short discrete fibers that are
uniformly distributed and randomly oriented. Fibers include steel fibers, glass
fibers, synthetic fibers and natural fibers – each of which lend varying
properties to the concrete. In addition, the character of fiber-reinforced
concrete changes with varying concretes, fiber materials, geometries,
distribution, orientation, and densities. Fibers are used in concrete to control
cracking due to plastic shrinkage and to drying shrinkage. They also reduce
the permeability of concrete. Some types of fibers produce greater impact–,
abrasion–, and shatter–resistance in concrete. Generally, fibers do not increase
the flexural strength of concrete, and so cannot replace moment–resisting or
structural steel reinforcement. Indeed, some fibers actually reduce the strength
of concrete. The amount of fibers added to a concrete mix is expressed as a
percentage of the total volume of the composite (concrete and fibers), termed
"volume fraction" (Vf). Vf typically ranges from 0.1 to 3%. The aspect ratio
(l/d) is calculated by dividing fiber length (l) by its diameter (d). Fibers with a
non-circular cross section use an equivalent diameter for the calculation of
aspect ratio. If the fiber's modulus of elasticity is higher than the matrix
(concrete or mortar binder), they help to carry the load by increasing the
tensile strength of the material. Increasing the aspect ratio of the fiber usually
segments the flexural strength and toughness of the matrix. However, fibers
that are too long tend to "ball" in the mix and create workability problems. The
weak matrix in concrete, when reinforced with steel fibers, uniformly
distributed across its entire mass, gets strengthened enormously, thereby
rendering the matrix to behave as a composite material with properties
significantly different from conventional concrete. Because of the vast
improvements achieved by the addition of fibers to concrete, there are several
420 C. Selin Ravikumar
Introduction
Because of the vast improvements achieved by the addition of fibers to concrete, there
are several applications where Fiber Reinforced Concrete (FRC) can be intelligently
and beneficially used. These fibers have already been used in many large projects
involving the construction of industrial floors, pavements, highway-overlays, etc., in
India. The principal fibers in common commercial use for civil engineering
applications include steel, glass, carbon and aramid. These fibers are also used in the
production of continuous fibers and are used as a replacement to reinforcing steel.
High percentages of steel fibers are used extensively in pavements and in tunneling.
This invention uses Slurry Infiltrated Fiber Concrete (SIFCON). Fibers in the form of
mat are also being used in the development of high performance structural composite.
The usefulness of FRC in various civil engineering applications is indisputable. Fiber
reinforced concrete has so far been successfully used in slabs on grade, shotcrete,
architectural panels, precast products, offshore structures, structures in seismic
regions, thin and thick repairs, crash barriers, footings, hydraulic structures and many
other applications.
Compared to other building materials such as metals and polymers, concrete is
significantly more brittle and exhibits a poor tensile strength. Based on fracture
toughness values, steel is at least 100 times more resistant to crack growth than
concrete. Concrete in service thus cracks easily, and this cracking creates easy access
routes for deleterious agents resulting in early saturation, freeze-thaw damage,
scaling, discoloration and steel corrosion. The concerns with the inferior fracture
toughness of concrete are alleviated to a large extent by reinforcing it with fibers of
various materials. The resulting material with a random distribution of short,
discontinuous fibers is termed fiber reinforced concrete (FRC) and is slowly
becoming a well accepted mainstream construction material (Banthia 1991).
The weak matrix in concrete, when reinforced with discrete steel fibers, uniformly
distributed across its entire mass, gets strengthened enormously, thereby rendering the
Effect of Fibers In Concrete Composites 421
mathematical expression that predicted split cylinder tensile strength of steel fiber
reinforced concrete was eventually derived. The predicted values fit well with
experimental data (Musmar 2013).
Polypropylene Fibers
The influence of polypropylene fibers was studied by Bagherzadeh et al. (2012) with
different proportioning and fiber length to improve the performance characteristics of
the lightweight cement (LWC) composites. Fibers used in two different lengths (6
mm and 12 mm) and fiber proportions (0.15% and 0.35%) by cement weight in the
mixture design. Hardened concrete properties such as: 7- and 28-day compressive
strength, splitting tensile strength, flexural strength, water absorption, and shrinkage
were evaluated. Fiber addition was seen to enhance the physical and mechanical
properties of light weight concrete. Compared to un-reinforced LWC, polypropylene
(PP) reinforced LWC with fiber proportioning 0.35% and 12 mm fiber length, caused
30.1% increase in the flexural strength and 27% increase in the splitting tensile
strength. Increased fiber availability in the LWC matrix, in addition to the ability of
longer PP fibers to bridge on the micro cracks, were suggested as the reasons for the
enhancement in mechanical properties.
as the stirrup spacing is medium to large. For such cases tests on plain concrete
cylinders are sufficient for further investigations of this retrofit method, as the key
parameters which really affect strength and ductility are the concrete strength,
composite fiber type, and sheet thickness (Demers and Neale 1999).
design charts for strain softening fiber reinforced concrete. To prevent sudden failure
after flexural cracking and to control crack width, equations for minimum post-crack
tensile strength are also proposed. The analytical tensile strain equations proposed for
serviceability limit the average crack width of structural members. In addition, the
bilinear moment-curvature model is used in conjunction with geometrical relationship
between curvature and deflection to determine short-term deflections of structural
members. An example of a one-way slab demonstrates the calculation steps.
the addition of high performance metallic fibers. Moreover, it was found that the level
of improvement in flexural properties of MFRC varies with the aspect ratio of fibers.
Out of the two different aspect ratios of metallic fibers used in this study, the fibers
with larger aspect ratio showed better efficiency in improving the flexural response of
MFRC (Hameed et al. 2009).
Concluding Remarks
Concrete is weak in tension and hence brittle. Therefore it is a cracked material.
Because of this its load capacity is limited. To enhance its performance under load
and improve its properties fibers are added to concrete at the time of its preparation.
The benefit occurring out of this is enhanced crack resistance and ductility. Fibers
made of steel, glass, polypropylene, etc., are generally used in concrete. Fibers are
short, discreet and randomly oriented in concrete. A concrete strengthened with fibers
is called fiber reinforced concrete. The fibers help to transfer loads at the internal
micro cracks. A review of literature has disclosed that researchers all over the world
are attempting to develop high performance concretes by using fibers and other
admixtures in concrete up to certain proportions. In the view of the global sustainable
developments, it is imperative that fibers like glass, carbon, polypropylene and aramid
provide improvements in tensile strength, fatigue characteristics, durability, shrinkage
characteristics, impact, cavitations, erosion resistance and serviceability of concrete.
Fibers impart energy absorption, toughness and impact resistance properties to fiber
reinforced concrete material and these characteristics in turn improve the fracture and
fatigue properties of fiber reinforced concrete. Research in glass fiber reinforced
concrete resulted in the development of alkali resistance fibers of high dispersion that
improved long term durability.
The new strategy now is the development of self-compacting fiber reinforced
concrete on which precast industry has shown keen interest. The influence of
polypropylene fibers was studied with different proportioning and fiber length to
428 C. Selin Ravikumar
References
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Plastic (FRP) for Concrete Structures (ACI 440R). ACI Manual of Concrete
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Effect of Fibers In Concrete Composites 429
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