Flexural and tensile properties of a glass fiber-reinforced ultra-high-strength concrete: an experimental, micromechanical and numerical study

The focus of this research effort was characterization of the flexural and tensile properties of a specific ultra-high-strength, fiber-reinforced concrete material. The material exhibited a mean unconfined compressive strength of approximately 140 MPa and was reinforced with short, randomly distributed alkali resistant glass fibers. As a part of the study, coupled experimental, analytical and numerical investigations were performed. Flexural and direct tension tests were first conducted to experimentally characterize material behavior. Following experimentation, a micromechanically-based analytical model was utilized to calculate the material's tensile failure response, which was compared to the experimental results. Lastly, to investigate the relationship between the tensile failure and flexural response, a numerical analysis of the flexural experiments was performed utilizing the experimentally developed tensile failure function. Results of the experimental, analytical and numerical investigations are presented herein.