Flexural strength of aligned steel fiber reinforced self-compacting concrete

Abstract

The dispersal of steel fibers in the concrete composites is likely to be more or less of a random orientation. The ultimate peak load and post-cracking behavior are controlled by the fiber orientation. This article is dedicated to theoretically investigate the relationship between the fiber direction angle and the percentage of pull-out force carried out. The investigation covers the analysis of an inclined fiber in two-dimensional and three-dimensional composites. The analysis is backed experimentally up by results of tests performed on self-compacting concrete prisms with random and aligned micro steel fibers. An electromagnetic field complemented with vibration is utilized to align the steel fibers in the fresh mixture. In this study, the effect of alignment was compared with the results of three concrete prisms produced with random fibers. The efficiency of alignment was monitored through the visual inspection. The electromagnetic process managed to make the fiber orientation factor ranges between 0.80 and 0.95 in.comparison to 0.3 - 0.5 for the prisms of random steel fibers. The failure peak load for the aligned samples was enhanced by 20% compared to the prisms of randomly distributed fibers of 0.35% steel fiber.