Experimental Investigation of Artificial Fiber Reinforced Concrete

Abstract

Concrete is the worldwide accepted versatile construction material. Fibers are reinforcing material which possesses various properties. The distribution of discrete fibers plays an important role in the development of concrete. This paper investigates the effects of the addition of glass and steel fibers on mechanical properties of fiber reinforced concrete (FRC). These properties include compressive, split and flexural strength. The influence of individual fiber percentage i.e. 0.5, 0.7, 0.9% glass and 0.5, 1, 1.5% steel fiber content by mass of cement was investigated. The properties of FRC increases or decreases depending upon the percentage of fiber content. It was observed that a higher percentage of fiber affects workability. Due to the homogeneous distribution of the short fiber of glass and steel, the strength increases. The best result was obtained at 0.9% glass FRC and 0.5% steel FRC. The compressive strength, flexural strength and split tensile strength of 0.9% of glass FRC and 0.5% of steel FRC were improved by 7.13%, 28.80%, 19.84% and 14.21%, 36.69%, 32.94% respectively than that of normal concrete. Glass fiber improves the crack arresting ability of concrete. Due to less percentage of fiber, there was a decrease in strength at 0.5 and 0.7% glass fiber. The concrete took full advantage of fibers in flexure. The flexural strength of all fiber content FRC increases over the flexural strength of normal concrete. The fibers were fully utilized in the post-cracking stage, then it increases the ductility and toughness of all kinds of FRC.KeywordsFRCSteelGlassMechanical propertiesM30