Effects of Glass and Steel Fibers on Fresh and Hardened Properties of Self-Compacting Concrete

Abstract

Self-compacting concrete (SCC) has been versatile over compaction of concrete by manual or mechanical vibrators. Compaction of concrete by traditional methods generates delays and imparts additional costs. Further, much research has been done on the effects of fiber on traditional concrete, but it has rarely been on SCC. Here, fiber-reinforced SCC was prepared by adding glass and steel fibers to study the effect of fibers on fresh properties like workability and hardened properties like compressive, split tensile and flexural strength. Geometrically similar reinforced specimens with 1.0% and 1.5% flexural reinforcement were also prepared to understand the flexural behavior of reinforced SCC with and without fibers. It was observed that the addition of fibers reduced workability and increased mechanical properties like compressive, split tensile, flexural strength, first crack load, ultimate load, and energy absorption capacity. It was also observed that as the size of specimens increased, the ductility factor decreased.