The mechanical properties of steel-polypropylene fibre composites concrete (HyFRCC)

Abstract

This paper discusses the experimental results on the mechanical properties of hybrid fibre reinforced composite concrete (HyFRCC) containing different proportions of steel fibre (SF) and polypropylene fibre (PPF). The mechanical properties include compressive strength, tensile strength, and flexural strength. SF is known to enhance the flexural and tensile strengths, and at the same time is able to resist the formation of macro cracking. Meanwhile, PPF contributes to the tensile strain capacity and compressive strength, and also delay the formation of micro cracks. Hooked-end deformed type SF fibre with 60 mm length and fibrillated virgin type PPF fibre with 19 mm length are used in this study. Meanwhile, the concrete strength is maintained for grade C30. The percentage proportion of SF-PPF fibres are varied in the range of 100-0%, 75-25%, 50-50%, 25-75% and 0-100% of which the total fibre volume fraction (Vf) is fixed at 0.5%. The experimental results reveal that the percentage proportion of SF-PPF fibres with 75-25% produced the maximum performance of flexural strength, tensile strength and flexural toughness. Meanwhile, the percentage proportion of SF-PPF fibres with 100-0% contributes to the improvement of the compressive strength compared to that of plain concrete.