Stress-strain behavior of steel fiber-reinforced concrete in compression

Good structural design demands high quality experimental data and reliable modeling of the mechanical properties of the constituent materials. Although several theoretical models and much experimental data on the behavior of fiber-reinforced concrete in compression are available in published literature, there are considerable reservations on the general applicability of these models for design. This paper presents the results of tests in compression of steel fiber-reinforced concrete carried out according to standard procedures, and a critical evaluation of the models proposed to define the stress-strain behavior in compression. The tests reported were carried out on cylindrical specimens of plain and steel fiber-reinforced concrete with fiber volume of 1, 1.6, and 3%. To evaluate the reliability of the models available in literature, a critical comparative study was carried out between the experimental data and the various proposed theoretical stress-strain relationships. It is shown that while many of the models showed good agreement with test results from which the model equations were derived, there was no such good agreement when the models were applied to other published test data.