FRACTURE TOUGHNESS OF FIBER REINFORCED HIGH-

STRENGTH CONCRETE

G. Appa Rao1, 2 and B.K. Raghu Prasad3

3. Professor and, 2.Research Scholar, Department of Civil Engineering,
Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore- 560 012, India .
Email: [email protected] & [email protected]
1.Assistant Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, Sri Venkatewara
University,
Tirupati-517 502, Andhra Pradesh, India.

Abstract

An experimental study on the fracture behavior of steel fiber reinforced high-

strength concrete is reported. Straight steel fibers are distributed randomly at three
different volume fractions of 0.31, 0.47 and 0.62 percent (24, 36 and 48 kg/m3 of
concrete respectively). Single edge notched compact tension specimens of size
500mm x 500mm x 80mm with edge notch length of 250mm have been used for
determining the fracture parameters. From the test results it has been observed that
the influence of volume fraction and reinforcement index on strength of concrete is
negligible. But very significant influence on the fracture energy and toughness is
noted. The values of fracture energy and toughness of concrete increased from 100
to 500 times that of the plain concrete with different volume of fraction of fibers. It
has also been observed that the higher fiber volume fraction produces lesser steep
descending branch of load-CMOD curves resulting in higher ductility, fracture
energy and toughness of high-strength concrete.

Key words : Fiber-reinforced composites, fracture energy, toughness, high-strength

concrete, reinforcement index, toughness index, and volume fraction.

Introduction

Fiber reinforced concrete (FRC) is a composite material in which steel, glass,

polypropylene or other tension materials are incorporated to improve the tensile
strength and other properties of concrete. The stress-strain variation of high-strength
concrete submitted to axial compression shows hardly any strain- softening response
as the descending branch after peak stress is almost vertical (ACI 363-R (1984)).
Explosive type of failure occurs when the peak stress is reached in high-strength
concrete due to increase in the brittleness. Moreover, the failure is sudden and
catastrophic in structures subject to earthquake, blast, or suddenly applied loads.
Adding fibers to a plain concrete matrix has little effect on its pre-cracking behavior
but does substantially enhance its post-cracking response, which leads to a greatly
improved ductility and toughness (Fanella and Naaman (1985)). Recently, the
uniaxial behavior of fiber reinforced composites has been reported in the literature
(Shah and Shankar (1987), Toerwe (1992), Banthia (1996), Banthia et al. (1995),
Carrasquillo et al. (1981), Gopalaratnam et al. (1992), Li et al. (1998), Jun and Stang
(1998)).

Mix Proportioning Ordinary Portland cement conforming to IS: 8112-1989 at 500

kg per cubic meters of concrete was used. No industrial by-product has been
incorporated. Fine aggregate was Natural River sand of size 2.36mm at 800 kg per
cubic meters of concrete. The coarse aggregate was crushed white granite at 1200 kg
per cubic meters of concrete consists of the combination of the aggregate particle
fractions (20-16) mm, (16-12.5) mm and (10-6.3) mm with equal proportions. The
water-cement ratio was 0.30 with a HRWRA Naphthalene Sulphonate type super
plasticizer (Complast SP 430) at 5.0 lit/m3. A total of four concrete mixes have been
designed with straight steel fibers at different volume fractions. The volume
fractions of steel fibers were 0.31, 0.47 and 0.62 percent (24kg, 36 kg, 48 kg per
cubic meter of concrete respectively) have been incorporated. Out of the four
concrete mixes one is plain concrete mix acting as a control mix. After 28 days of
water curing the specimens were tested under dry conditions. The mix proportions of
various constituent materials are given in Table 1. The characteristics of fiber
reinforcement are given in Table 2.

Table 1: Quantities of Constituent Materials and Mix Proportioning of Fiber-

Reinforced High- Strength Concrete

Mix Designation
Parameter
SFRCI
SFRCI SFRCII SFRCIII
V
Water Content, lit/m3 150 150 150 150
Cement Content, kg/m3 500 500 500 500
Coarse Aggregate
Content, 1200 1200 1200 1200
kg/m3
Fine Aggregate Content,
800 800 800 800
kg/m3
Fiber content, kg/m3 0 24 36 48
Volume Fraction, vf
0 0.31 0.47 0.62
percent
Superplasticizer, lit/m3 5.0 5.0 5.0 5.0
Water-Cement ratio 0.30 0.30 0.30 0.30
Cement –Sand Ratio 1:1.6 1:1.6 1:1.6 1:1.6
Cement- Total Aggregate
1:4 1:4 1:4 1:4
Ratio
Sand- Coarse Aggregate
1:1.5 1:1.5 1:1.5 1:1.5
Ratio
 Table 2: Characteristics of Fiber Reinforcement

Reinforcement
Fiber Content
kg/m3 , (v f) %
Designation

Fraction, v f
Diameter

Volume

(v f l/ϕ)
Length

Aspect

Index ,
Ratio
Mix

mm

mm

(%)
(ϕ)

l/ϕ
(l)

SFRC I 35 0.50 70 0 0 0.00

SFRC II 35 0.50 70 24 0.31 0.22

SFRC III 35 0.50 70 36 0.47 0.33

SFRC IV 35 0.50 70 48 0.62 0.44

Testing of Specimens

Teak wood moulds are prepared to cast test specimens of single edge notched
compact tension specimens of dimensions 500mmx500mmx80mm with edge notch
length of 250mm. The loading is applied through specially fabricated metal grips
with nut and bolt system and C-clamps. Uniformly distributed loading has been
applied over the far ends of the test specimens. The compressive strength of concrete
has been evaluated on 150mm cube specimens, and the tensile strength and the
modulus of elasticity using cylindrical specimens of 150mm diameter and 300mm
height. For every load increment the crack mouth opening displacements (CMOD)
have been measured using linearly variable differentiable transducers (LVDT). The
variations of the load versus CMOD curves are used to evaluate the fracture energy
and fracture toughness of the concrete.

Test Results and Discussion

The toughness is defined as the area under the stress-strain or stress-crack mouth
opening displacement curve. Magnification of the toughness of fiber reinforced
concrete has been measured using toughness index with reference to the no
reinforced control concrete matrix. The toughness index (TI) is the ratio of the
toughness of the fiber reinforced matrix to that of reference plain concrete matrix, Tf,
frc/T f, pc (Fanella and Naaman (1985). This parameter measures the relative increase
in the ductility of the fiber reinforced concrete with respect to the control mix. The
specific toughness is the toughness of fiber reinforced concrete per unit strength
(Tf/σc or σT). Tf, frc and Tf, pc are toughness of fiber reinforced and plain concretes
respectively.
 Table 3: Mechanical and Fracture Properties of Fiber Reinforced High-Strength

Property SFRCI SFRCII SFRCIII SFRCIV

Compressive Strength
72.50 70.00 69.00 76.70
(σc), MPa
Tensile Strength (σt),
3.75 3.70 3.89 3.72
MPa
Modulus of Elasticity,
38.39 37.56 37.86 38.97
GPa
Fracture Energy, G f,
103 10500 14250 51000
N/m
Fracture Toughness
2.05 210 285 1020
(T f), N-m
Specific Toughness © 0.028 3.00 4.13 13.30

Specific Toughness (T) 0.55 56.76 73.26 274.20

Toughness Index (TI) 1.00 102.44 139.02 497.56

C= with reference to compressive strength, T= with reference to tensile strength

As shown in Table 3 it has been clearly indicated that the influence of the fiber
volume fraction and the reinforcement index has not been observed on the
mechanical properties of various concrete mixes, as they are of the same range. The
fracture energy also known as fracture toughness of concrete is very important
property of concrete. It can be seen from Table 3 that the fracture energy of plain
concrete is 103 N/m. But the fracture energy, Gf of concrete has been appeared to be
significantly influenced by the fiber volume fraction and the reinforcement index.
The numerical values of fracture energy of fiber-reinforced high-strength concrete
are 10500, 14250 and 51000 N/m with the addition of three volume fractions of
0.31, 0.47 and 0.62 percent respectively. This clearly indicates that a very huge
amount of fracture energy, Gf of as much as 51000 N/m is dissipated for fracturing
the fiber reinforced high-strength concrete incorporated with 0.62 percent volume
fraction of fibers and with a reinforcement index (vfl/ϕ ) of 0.44 of steel fibers.
Reinforcement index (RI) is the product of volume fraction of fibers and the aspect
ratio i.e. RI=vfl/ϕ . It has been observed that the fracture energy is utilized to
overcome the bridging and pulling out of the aggregate and fibers. The fracture
surfaces of the tested specimens show a partial fracture of fibers and very significant
pulling out of fibers from the mortar matrix. The coarse aggregate particles seemed
to exhibit intergranular type of failure with larger size particles and transgranular
type with smaller size particles. The larger size coarse aggregate acts as stress raisers
in the concrete mix resulting in increase in the bond stress between aggregate and
cement matrix under loading. The aggregate interlocking has also been attributed to
the increase in the fracture energy of concrete. The failure surfaces of the plain
concrete specimens exhibit significant transgranular type of failure.
It can be observed that the toughness index generally increases with the volume
fraction of fibers. Typical values of the observed toughness, toughness index, and
specific toughness of fiber reinforced high-strength concrete are shown in Table 3. It
has been found that the toughness of fiber reinforced high-strength concrete, with
0.62 percent volume fraction, was 500 times greater than that of the no reinforced
high-strength concrete. The corresponding values of increase in the toughness are
indicated by toughness index. The toughness indices for SFRC-II and SFRC-III are
102.44 and 139.02 respectively. The measure of increase or decrease of toughness of
concrete can be obtained as the specific toughness with reference to both
compressive and tensile strengths. There is a significant increase in the toughness of
fiber reinforced high-strength concrete with a unit increase in the strength of
concrete. The toughness per unit compressive strength of plain concrete is observed
to be 0.028 N-m per unit compressive strength, where as it is 13.30 in case of mix
SFRC-IV with fiber volume fraction of 0.62 percent. That means the specific
toughness of fiber reinforced high-strength concrete with 0.62 percent volume
fraction of fibers has been found to be 475 times greater than that of plain concrete
with respect to compressive strength. The corresponding values of specific
toughness values are 3.00 and 4.13 for concrete mixes SFRC-II and SFRC-III with
fiber volume fractions of 0.31 and 0.47 percent respectively. The increase in the
specific toughness values in concrete mixes SFRC-II and SFRC-III are 107 and 148
times respectively greater than that of the plain concrete mix with reference to
compressive strength. The specific toughness with reference to tensile strength has
been observed to be 0.55,56.76, 73.26 and 274.20 respectively for mixes SFRC-I,
SFRC-II, SFRC-II and SFRC-IV. The increase in the specific toughness of fiber
reinforced high-strength concrete with 0.31, 0.47 and 0.62 percent volume fraction
of fibers were found to be 102.44, 139.02 and 497.56 times that of the plain
concrete. From the test results it can be seen that the fracture properties of fiber
reinforced high-strength concrete has been improved significantly. Tough it has been
observed that the increase in the fracture toughness seems to be very good with 0.31
and 0.47 percent volume fraction of fibers, but a very tremendous increase of
fracture energy and toughness with fiber volume fraction of 0.62 percent.

Conclusions

The fracture energy and toughness of high-strength concrete has been significantly
increased as the volume fraction of fibers increased. Relatively large amount of
fracture energy is needed for fracturing the fiber reinforced high-strength concrete.
As much as 51000 N/m fracture energy is dissipated to fracture the high-strength
concrete with the volume fraction of 0.62 percent. And the specific toughness has
been increased, as much as 500 times that of plain concrete, both in tension and
compression. But the increase in the specific toughness has been found to be good
with volume fraction of 0.31and 0.47 percent.
References

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