Properties of steel fiber reinforced fly ash concrete

Abstract

This paper reports on a comprehensive study on the properties of concrete containing fly ash and steel fibers. Properties studied include unit weight and workability of fresh concrete, and compressive strength, flexural tensile strength, splitting tensile strength, elasticity modulus, sorptivity coefficient, drying shrinkage and freeze–thaw resistance of hardened concrete. Fly ash content used was 0%, 15% and 30% in mass basis, and fiber volume fraction was 0%, 0.25%, 0.5%, 1.0% and 1.5% in volume basis. The laboratory results showed that steel fiber addition, either into Portland cement concrete or fly ash concrete, improve the tensile strength properties, drying shrinkage and freeze–thaw resistance. However, it reduced workability and increase sorptivity coefficient. Although fly ash replacement reduce strength properties, it improves workability, reduces drying shrinkage and increases freeze–thaw resistance of steel fiber reinforced concrete. The performed experiments show that the behaviour of fly ash concrete is similar to that of Portland cement concrete when fly ash is added.