Design, preparation and mechanical properties of full-field aligned steel fiber reinforced cementitious composite

Abstract

In this study, a full-field aligned steel fiber reinforced cementitious composites (FASFRC) prism specimen was designed, prepared and tested. The special feature of the FASFRC is the orientation of steel fibers in the specimen is consistent with the principal stress when apply flexural loading to the specimen. In order to optimise the design of the FASFRC prism, the orientation of the major principal stress of the prism subjected to flexural load was determined by finite element analysis, which is the expected orientation of steel fibers in a true specimen. Then, in the preparation of the FASFRC prisms, an external magnetic field with magnetic line consisting with the direction of the principal stress was used to control the direction of steel fibers to be consistent with the designed orientation when the mixtures were compacted. Finally, the flexural strength, toughness and residual strength of FASFRC, conventional steel fiber reinforced cementitious composite (SFRC) and aligned steel fiber reinforced cementitious composite (ASFRC) prism specimens were tested by four-point bending tests. Through the tests, it is found that the mechanical properties of the FASFRC specimens were significantly higher than other specimens mainly due to the enhancement of the reinforcement of steel fibers.