Abstract
To ensure the quality of concrete construction, the workability of fresh mix measured by rational test methods is critical to be controlled. With the presence of steel fibers, whether the test methods and evaluation indices of fresh self-compacting concrete (SCC) are adaptable for self-compacting steel fiber reinforced concrete (SFRC) needs to be systematically verified. In this paper, seven groups of self-compacting SFRC, referenced with one group SCC, were prepared by using the mix proportion design method based on the steel fiber-aggregates skeleton packing test. The main factors included the volume fraction and the length of hooked-end steel fiber. Tests for filling ability, passing ability, and stability of fresh self-compacting SFRC and SCC were carried out. Results indicate that the adaptability was well for the slump-flow test with indices of slump flow and flow time T500 to evaluate the filling ability, the J-ring flow test with an index of PA level to evaluate the passing ability, and the static segregation test with an index of static segregation resistance to evaluate the stability of fresh self-compacting SFRC. By the repeated tests and measurements, the slump cone should be vertically lifted off to a height of 300 mm within 3 s at a constant speed, the spacing of the rebar in the J-ring test should be adjusted to be two times the fiber length. If the table jumping test is used, the dynamic segregation percent should be increased to 35% to fit the result of the static segregation test. Good workability of the self-compacting SFRC prepared in this study is presented with the general evaluation of test results.
Highlights
With the development of concrete construction technology, self-compacting concrete (SCC) has been widely applied in engineering [1,2]
The workability of fresh mixes was measured in accordance with the specification of China code JGJ/T283 [1], which is identical to ASTM C1611 [6] and ASTM C 1621 [7]
Due to different lengths of hooked-end steel fiber tested in this study, the fiber factor is the product of the aspect ratio multiplied by the volume fraction of steel fiber and is applied to reflect the comprehensive effect of steel fiber on workability in the following discussion
Summary
With the development of concrete construction technology, self-compacting concrete (SCC) has been widely applied in engineering [1,2]. Compared with SCC, the workability of self-compacting SFRC changes in different aspects due to the mix rheology was affected significantly by the addition of steel fibers, and the fiber segregation decreases with the increased plastic viscosity [9,10,11,12]. This is affected by the morphology of steel fibers, including the surface roughness and geometry, and by the fraction of steel fiber by volume of SFRC [12,13,14,15,16]. In view of the effect of steel fiber, the applicability of the test methods for SCC needs to be verified for self-compacting SFRC
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