Influence of Cooling Methods on the Behavior of Reactive Powder Concrete Exposed to Fire Flame Effect

The construction of highly safe and durable buildings that can bear accident damage risks including fire, earthquake, impact, and more, can be considered to be the most important goal in civil engineering technology. An experimental investigation was prepared to study the influence of adding various percentages 0%, 1.0%, and 1.5% of micro steel fiber volume fraction (V-f) to reactive powder concrete (RPC)-whose properties are compressive strength, splitting tensile strength, flexural strength, and absorbed energy-after the exposure to fire flame of various burning temperatures 300, 400, and 500 degrees C using gradual-, foam-, and sudden-cooling methods. The outcomes of this research proved that the maximum reduction in mechanical properties is detected in case of 0% addition at burning temperature of 500 degrees C using sudden cooling to be 63.90%, 55.77% and 53.8% for compressive, splitting tensile, and flexural strength, respectively, while using 1.5% produced a modification in compressive strength, splitting tensile strength, and flexural strength to 6.67%, 4.15%, and 7.00% respectively, and 7.10 kNmm for the absorbed energy for gradual cooling at 300 degrees C. From the results, the adopted cooling methods can be ordered according to their negative influence by sudden, foam, and gradual, while the optimum percentage of (V-f) is 1.5% when burning at 300 degrees C for all methods of cooling. 1.0% is considered the optimum percentage for all burning temperatures that exceed 400 degrees C using sudden-cooling method.