Experimental Study on Macroscopic Mechanical Behavior of SFRC under Triaxial Compression

Abstract

This article experimentally studied the mechanical behaviors of steel fiber reinforced concrete by conventional triaxial tests. Cylindrical concrete specimens were first fabricated with four different fiber volume fractions of 0, 0.75, 1.5, and 3.0%. Triaxial compression tests were then conducted for the specimens subjected to four confining pressures (10, 20, 40, and 80 MPa). Their stress-strain curves were obtained and their failure patterns were photographed. The results show that under the same confining pressure, peak stress, peak strain, and toughness increase with the increase of fiber volume fraction. At the same fiber volume fraction, with the increase of confining pressure comes an increase in both compressive strength and toughness. Under lower confining pressure, the addition of fibers seems to have a better performance to improve the concrete toughness. Peak stress and peak strain increase with the increase of strain-rate. Besides, shearing and crushing are the main failure patterns of SFRC under triaxial compression.