COMPARATIVE STUDY ON INFLUENCES OF VARIOUS FIBERS ON FRACTURE PROPERTIES OF CONCRETE

Concrete is one of the most conventionally consumed construction materials. Concrete technology has developed at a rapid pace over the last several decades and the material performance has been significantly improved. Nowadays, high performance concrete with a compressive strength exceeding 100 MPa can be readily designed and manufactured. However, the low ductility of concrete severely limited its application, more seriously, the brittleness of concrete increases with an increase in its strength. It has been found that different type of fibers added in specific percentage to concrete can improve some specific concrete performance. This study comparatively analyzed the application of three most frequently used fibers, namely, steel, polypropylene and carbon, as reinforcement in normal concrete and ultra high performance concrete. The experimental investigation consisted of compression tests on cubes and fracture tests on notched prismatic specimens made from plain concrete and fiber concrete with 0.5% of various fibers. It was observed from the test results that fibers contribute immensely to the structural integrity and structural stability of concrete elements and thereby improve their fracture properties. Futhermore, the enhancement effects of fibers were investigated, the matching relations between fibers and concretes were represented from the test results.