Irradiation Duration Effect of Gamma Ray on the Compressive Strength of Reactive Powder Concrete

Abstract

Reactive Powder Concrete (RPC) could be considered as the furthermost significant modern high compressive strength concrete. In this study, an experimental investigation on the impact of micro steel fiber volume fraction ratio and gamma ray irradiation duration influence upon the compressive strength of RPC is presented. Three volume fraction ratios (0.0, 1.0 and 1.5) % was implemented. For each percentage of the adopted fiber ratios, six different irradiation duration was considered; these are (1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6) days. Gamma source (Cs-137) of energy (0.662) MeV and activity (6) mci was used. In a case of zero volume fraction ratio, the experimental results showed that gamma ray had a significant influence on the reducing of the compressive strength varies between (1.2-8.6)% for a period of (1-6) days, respectively. Although there was a decrease in the compressive strength for a state of non-zero volume fraction ratio (1 and 1.5) % varies between (1.0-3.1 and 0.4-1.6) %, respectively, the attained results indicated that gamma ray had no significant effect to reduce the compressive strength of the RPC that’s included micro steel fibers as a volume fraction.