FRC Notes

UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON
DEPARTMENT OF CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT

CM 425  Concrete Technology
Professor Kamran M. Nemati
Winter Quarter 2014
PROGRESS IN CONCRETE TECHNOLOGY
Fiber-Reinforced Concrete
I. INTRODUCTION
 Concrete containing a hydraulic cement, water, fine or fine and coarse
aggregate, and discontinuous discrete fibers is called fiber-reinforced
concrete.
 It may also contain pozzolans and other admixtures commonly used in

conventional concrete.
 Fibers of various shapes and sizes produced from steel, plastic, glass, and
natural materials are being used; however, for most structural and
nonstructural purposes, steel fiber is the most commonly used of all the
fibers.
 There is considerable improvement in the post-cracking behavior of concretes

containing fibers. Although in the fiber-reinforced concrete the ultimate
tensile strengths do not increase appreciably, the tensile strains at rupture do.
 Compared to plain concrete, fiber-reinforced concrete is much tougher and

more resistant to impact.
II. TOUGHENING MECHANISM

 Typical load-deflection curves for plain concrete and fiber-reinforced concrete
are shown in Fig. 1.
 Plain concrete fails suddenly once the deflection corresponding to the
ultimate flexural strength is exceeded; on the other hand, fiber-reinforced
concrete continue to sustain considerable loads even at deflections
considerably in excess of the fracture deflection of the plain concrete.
 Examination of fractured specimens (Fig. 2a) of fiber-reinforced concrete

shows that failure takes place primarily due to fiber pull-out or debonding.
CM 425 – Concrete Technology PROGRESS IN CONCRETE TECHNOLOGY  FRC Page 2
Thus unlike plain concrete, a fiber-reinforced concrete specimen does not

break immediately after initiation of the first crack (Figure 2b)
Fig. 1 Load-deflection behavior of plain and fiber-reinforced concrete

 This has the effect of increasing the work of fracture, which is referred to as
toughness and is represented by the area under the load-deflection curve.
Fig. 2a Cross-section of a steel-fiber- Fig. 2b Mechanism of increase in

reinforced beam after fracture flexure toughness of concrete
showing that the failure mode with fibers
is by fiber pullout.
 The toughening mechanism in fiber-reinforced concrete can be explained as
follows:1 The composite will carry increasing load after the first cracking of
the matrix if the pull-out resistance of the fibers at the first crack is greater
than the load at first cracking;…at the cracked section, the matrix does not
resist any tension and the fibers carry the entire load taken by the composite.
With the increasing load on the composite, the fibers will tend to transfer the
additional stress to the matrix through bond stresses. If these bond stresses
1
S.P. Shah, “Fiber Reinforced Concrete,” in Handbook of Structural Concrete, eds. F.K. Kong, R.H.Evans,
E. Cohen, and F. Roll, McGraw-Hill Book Company, New York, 1984.
do not exceed the bond strength, then there may be additional cracking in the
matrix. This process of multiple cracking will continue until either fibers fail
or the accumulated local debonding will lead to fiber pull-out.
 The data from the tests2 on both plain and steel fiber-reinforced mortars
showed that incorporation of 0.9 and 2 percent fiber by volume of concrete
increased the flexural strength by approximately 15 and 30 percent,
respectively; however, in both cases the elongation at rupture was 9 to 10
times that of the unreinforced mortar. No visible cracks were ascertained in
the tensile zone immediately prior to final rupture; the fine distribution of
microcracks showed that fibers acted primarily as micro-reinforcement for
crack distribution.
 According to the report by ACI Committee 544,3 the total energy absorbed in
fiber debonding as measured by the area under the load-deflection curve
before complete separation of a beam is at least 10 to 40 times higher for fiber-
reinforced concrete than for plain concrete. The magnitude of improvement
in toughness is strongly influenced by fiber concentration and resistance of
fibers to pull-out which, in turn, is governed primarily by the fiber aspect
ratio (length/diameter ratio) and other factors, such as shape or surface
texture.
FIBERS
 The steel fibers of different shapes and sizes are shown in Fig. 3.
Fig. 3 Typical fiber types used in concrete: (a) straight, smooth, drawn wire steel
fibers; (b) deformed (crimped) wire steel fibers; (c) variable-cross-section steel
fibers; (d) glued bundles of steel fibers with crimped ends.
2
H. Krenchel, Fiber Reinforced Concrete, ACI SP-44, 1974, pp. 45-77.
3
Report ACI 544.1R-82, Concrete International, Vol. 4, No. 5, pp. 9-30, 1982.
 Typical aspect ratios range from about 30 to 150.

 It is well known that the addition of any type of fibers to plain concrete
reduces the workability. Regardless of the fiber type, the loss of workability
is proportional to the volume concentration of the fibers in concrete.
 The greatest advantage of fiber reinforcement of concrete is the improvement
in flexural toughness (total energy absorbed in breaking a specimen in
flexure). Related to flexural toughness are the impact and fatigue resistance
of concrete, which are also increased considerably.
 Fiber-reinforced concrete is generally made with high cement content and
low water/cement ratio. When well compacted and cured, concretes
containing steel fibers seem to possess excellent durability as long as fibers
remain protected by the cement paste.
APPLICATIONS
 The first structural use of steel-fiber-reinforced concrete was in 1971 for the
production of demountable 3250 mm2 by 65 mm-thick panels for a parking
garage of London’s Heathrow Airport. At the time of the last reported
inspection, after 5 years of use, the slab showed no signs of cracking.
 In 1971, the U.S. Army Construction Engineers Research Laboratory
performed a controlled testing of fiber-reinforced concrete (2 percent fiber by
volume) runway slabs at Vicksburg, Mississippi. The experiment compared
the performance of a 150-mm thick fiber-reinforced concrete slab with that of
250-mm thick plain concrete slab. With the former, the first crack appeared
after 350 loadings compared to 40 for plain concrete; while plain concrete was
judged to have completely failed after 950 loadings, the fibrous concrete
pavement with hairline cracks was serviceable after 8735 loadings.
 At McCarren International Airport, Las Vegas, Nevada, in 1976 an existing
asphaltic-paved aircraft parking area was overlaid with 150-mm-thick steel-
fiber-reinforced concrete, compared to 380 mm thickness that would have
been required for conventional reinforced concrete.
 In 1980, steel fiber concrete was used in the construction of a new taxiway at
Cannon International Airport, Reno, Nevada.
 Two large areas of rock slopes were stabilized with steel fibrous shotcrete,
one at a refinery in Sweden, the other at a railroad cut along the snake river in
the state of Washington.
 Generally, when used in structural applications, steel fiber reinforced
concrete should only be used in a supplementary role to inhibit cracking, to
improve resistance to impact or dynamic loading, and to resist material
disintegration. In structural members where flexural or tensile loads will
occur, such as in beams, columns, suspended floors, (i.e., floors or slabs not
on grade) the conventional reinforcing steel must be capable of supporting

the total tensile load. In applications where the presence of continuous
reinforcement is not essential to the safety and integrity of the structure, e.g.,
pavements, overlays, and shotcrete linings, the improvements in flexural
strength associated with fibers can be used to reduce section thickness or
improve performance or both.

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UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON

DEPARTMENT OF CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT

 It may also contain pozzolans and other admixtures commonly used in

 There is considerable improvement in the post-cracking behavior of concretes

 Compared to plain concrete, fiber-reinforced concrete is much tougher and

II. TOUGHENING MECHANISM

 Examination of fractured specimens (Fig. 2a) of fiber-reinforced concrete

Thus unlike plain concrete, a fiber-reinforced concrete specimen does not

Fig. 1 Load-deflection behavior of plain and fiber-reinforced concrete

Fig. 2a Cross-section of a steel-fiber- Fig. 2b Mechanism of increase in

 Typical aspect ratios range from about 30 to 150.

on grade) the conventional reinforcing steel must be capable of supporting

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