Fresh properties and mechanical properties of steel fibre self-compacting concrete

Abstract

This paper investigates the fresh properties and mechanical properties of steel fibre selfcompacting concrete (SFSCC). Self-Compacting Concrete (SCC) has several advantages over normal concrete. SCC does not require any efforts of vibrations as it becomes compacted under its own weight. The application of SCC can be greatly improved with steel fibres, randomly added into the mixtures as to enhance the performance of concrete matrix. Addition of steel fibre has shown an improvement on the mechanical properties of concrete such as the tensile and flexural performance. The aim of this study is to determine the mechanical performance of SFSCC with different percentage of steel fibres and also to observe the fresh properties of SCC with and without steel fibres compare to the normal vibrated concrete (NC). In order to compare the performance of SFSCC, the properties of NC and SCC were also studied. The volume percentage of steel fibre is varies at every increment of 0.25% from 0 to 1.25% The results reveal that the addition of steel fibres in concrete matrix shows better mechanical performance compared with NC and SCC with percentage increment more than 50% for tensile, flexural and toughness testing. However, this study also concludes that steel fibre has no significant improvement to the compressive strength where the increament is very little. Based on the overall results obtained from this study, the performance of steel fibre self-compacting concrete shows a significant improvement with the capabilities in absorbing relatively large capacity of energy while delaying the propagation of crack, thus, preventing sudden failure in the concrete matrix as happened in most of conventional concrete.