Flexural performance of sustainable concrete beams containing supplementary cementitious materials and glass fiber

After the dawn of the industrial era, pollution across the globe rose at a faster pace. It is essential to use sustainable materials in the construction industry. However, the characteristics of sustainable materials like fly ash, GGBS, and glass fibers may vary when induced and significantly impact the structure's safety and stability. Concrete is a composite matrix that is extremely hard and has high compressive strength but poor tensile strength. Unlike mild steel, concrete's elastic, yield, and plastic regions are difficult to observe and are brittle materials. As a result, concrete failure is impossible to assess. Experiments on three different types of M40 grade concrete with two different reinforcement specifications of 10 mm and 12 mm employed as top and bottom reinforcements have been tested to understand flexural behaviour and failure patterns in the concrete. The sizes of beams 150 mm x 150 mm x 750 mm were employed and tested using 4-point bending. An analytical finite element method (FEM) model compares the results. The flexural strengths of beams cast with a control mix, a proposed mix (50:25:25) of cement, fly ash, GGBS, and adding 0.50% of glass fiber to the optimum mix have been compared. This study shows that the OM and OM-GF mixes can be used for structural purposes in concrete to make it more durable and sustainable.