Experimental study on steel fibre reinforced self-compacting concrete incorporating high volume of marble powder

Abstract

This paper presents the results of an experimental study which investigates the effect of the use of marble powder (MP), as partial cement substitution, on the fresh and hardened properties of fibre-reinforced self-compacting concrete (FRSCC) of nonuniform size (length) and aspect ratio of fibres used. For each length of steel fibre (25, 30 and 50 mm), three percentages (.5, .8 and 1%) were used to improve the performance of FRSCC. All mixtures of concrete specimens prepared with 30% of MP were evaluated. Slump flow time and diameter, sieve stability and L-Box were performed to assess the fresh properties of the (FRSCC). Compressive strength, splitting tensile strength, flexural strength and ultrasonic pulse velocity of the FRSCC and self-compacting concrete (SCC) were determined for the hardened properties. The results were compared with ordinary concrete (without steel fibre) containing 30% of MP (SCC). The results suggest that the incorporation of steel fibre in the SCC requires the use of high volume of superplasticiser to overcome the workability loss resulting from the elongated shape and large surface area of fibres. The sieve stability, Slump flow diameter, L-Box and Slump flow time for RSCC dropped to 1, 10, 12 and 65%, respectively. The workability loss is significant in the case of 1% and 50 mm length fibre which revealed the highest length and percentage. On the other hand, the use of steel fibre and MP has a significant effect on the mechanical performances. The increase in ultrasonic pulse velocity, compressive strength, splitting tensile strength and flexural strength reaches 2, 8, 16 and 29%, respectively. The addition of fibre enhanced the ductility significantly. The optimum volume fraction and aspect ratio of fibre for better performance in terms of strength was found to be .8% and 30 mm, respectively. The results indicated that high volume of MP can be used to produce FRSCC.

Experimental study on the spalling behaviour of ultra-high strength concrete in fire

“…The key aim of the fresh property tests was to evaluate the workability of the UHSC [43]. The fresh concrete properties were tested according to relevant standards for self-compacting concrete [43][44][45].…”

Statistical Analysis and Preliminary Study on the Mix Proportion Design of Self-Compacting Steel Fiber Reinforced Concrete

“…In this paper, 301 groups of test data for SC-SFRC from previous literatures [2,9,10,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,22,23,26,27,28,29,31,32,33,34,35,36,37,38,39,40,41,42,43,44,45,46,47,48,49,50,51,52,53,54,55,56,57,58,59,60,61] were collected to build the database. The range of results used for the experimental database are listed in Table 1.…”

“…Due to the packing effect of the fiber-aggregate solid skeleton, the self-compacting performance could not be achieved once the volume fraction of steel fiber in concrete exceeds the limited value even if the concrete mixture is a homogeneous and stable suspension [5]. The limitation (usually less than 2%) is mainly affected by the characteristics of raw materials [2,6,7] and mix proportion [8,9,10,11,12]. The characteristics of the raw materials include the maximum particle size and surface morphology of coarse aggregate, volume fraction, aspect ratio and geometry of steel fiber, binder paste content and sand ratio.…”

“…At present, various mix design methods for SC-SFRC have been reported. The binary mixture method [4,9,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21] is one of the most commonly used methods, in which steel fibers are directly added to SCC. The workability of fresh SC-SFRC is tested to evaluate its satisfaction in terms of the required self-compacting performance.…”

“…If self-compacting could not be achieved, the material compositions were subsequently adjusted without affecting the water-to-binder ratio ( w / b ). The adjustment measures include adding chemical admixture [13,18,19,20,21] and taking the volume of steel fiber into the consideration of an aggregate [9,15,16] or coarse aggregate [4]. The method has several disadvantages, such as project targeting, particularized condition and poor adoptability.…”