A New Look at Tensile Creep of Fiber-Reinforced Concrete

The study reveals that additional steel fibers with a volume fraction of 0.50% influences the individual components of tensile creep in different manners. Steel fibers reduce the initial rate of tensile basic creep, but increase long term basic creep capacity. That suggests that fibers provide more stress relaxation in time. The study attributes this to the ability of the fibers to control microcracking, distribute internal stresses more uniformly and engage greater volume of the matrix in stress transfer. To avoid confusion in interpreting the stress relaxation of FRC from total tensile creep and drying creep test results, the study suggests dividing the stress relaxation mechanisms into beneficial and detrimental components. This study demonstrates an approach for testing tensile creep of concrete in order to isolate the mechanisms responsible for basic and drying creep.