Abstract
In the last decades, fiber reinforced concrete have emerged as the possible key to revolutionize civil engineering. Among different types of fibers employed in concrete technology to date, the application of recycled steel fibers produced from end-of-life car tires appears to be a viable approach towards environmentally friendly construction. In this study, we demonstrate the laboratory research and numerical analysis of concrete reinforced with waste steel fibers recovered during the recycling process of end-of-life car tires. Concrete mixes with the following fiber contents: 0.5%, 0.75%, 1.0%, 1.25%, and 1.5% per volume were prepared and then tested in three-point bending conditions. The laboratory investigation revealed highly boosted properties of concrete under flexure. We further performed the finite element method (FEM) analysis of 2D models using Atena software in order to develop a material model allowing the numerical modelling of recycled steel fibers reinforced concrete (RSFRC) behavior. The parameters of RSFRC material model have been modified using the inverse analysis until matching the experimental performance of the material. The results, being in good agreement with the laboratory investigation, have indicated a high potential of RSFRC for real scale construction applications.
Highlights
The search for technological solutions to the ever-increasing demand in concrete production represents one of the greatest challenges the concrete industry is currently facing
According to EN-206 [29], the mixtures 0.5%, 0.75%, and 1.0% can be classified as fresh concrete consistency class C2, while the mixtures 1.25% and 1.50% can be assigned to class C3
Even for the highest recycled steel fibers (RSF) loading, i.e., 1.5%, the spread of the results may be considered as marginal. This fact may be attributed to the size and type of the aggregate and the slump flow of the mix in case of the concrete described in the work [18]
Summary
The search for technological solutions to the ever-increasing demand in concrete production represents one of the greatest challenges the concrete industry is currently facing. A great effort has been devoted to the application of waste materials as concrete components in the field of construction. The main advantages of this strategy lie with the potential environmentally friendly applications by reusing waste and reducing the energy consumption associated with the production of new materials. Fiber reinforced concrete (FRC) is characterized by improved fatigue resistance [5], toughness [6], durability [7], and thermal and fire resistance [8] with comparison to concrete. The variety of short, randomly distributed fibers was developed to be applied as concrete reinforcement and released on the market in the last decades [6,10,11]
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