Fracture of fibre reinforced concrete notched beams under impact loading

The fracture of fibre reinforced concrete (FRC) notched beams under impact loading was studied, using a large (578 kg capacity) instrumented drop-weight impact machine. Three different types of steel fibres were tested, at volume fractions of 0.5% and 1.0%; the concrete had a matrix compressive strength of 40 MPa. Four different relative notch depths were used: 0.1, 0.2, 0.3 and 0.4. The effects of the notches on peak bending load and apparent stress were studied. In addition, fracture parameters such as the dynamic fracture toughness (K-ID) and the J-integral were calculated in order to assess the fracture behavior of the concrete.