The classical test to confirm the performance of a given fibre design for use in reinforced concrete is the pull-out test. While attempts have been made to simulate the performance of such pull-out tests, in practice it has been found that there is a significant disparity between prediction and real-life performance. The high strength of steel reinforcing fibres is a consequence of the cold wire drawing process and subsequent fabrication. Residual stresses exist in cold drawn wire as a consequence of the elastic response to a non-uniform distribution of plastic strain. This also introduces a yield strength profile where yield strength varies radially through the wire. The question arises as to whether fibre design should use a starting material model that considers these properties. This thesis examines whether the tensile test, simple bend test and pull-out test provide enough information to define a starting material model that may be used for further design and simulation of such fibres. Since the details of the wire drawing process and material specification are proprietary and therefore unknown, a sensitivity study was conducted to determine which aspects of the wire drawing process have the greatest effect on the pull-out curve and the following were established as being significant: • Plastic strain due to wire drawing was shown to be the most important factor. • The bilinear curve was shown to be a suitable approximation for the stress-strain curve. • Replacing the plastic strain profile with a single value of average equivalent plastic strain is practical. The following were established as having negligible effect: • The consequences of the hooked-end forming process. • The residual stress profiles due to wire drawing provided that the above was also excluded. • The hardening law While inverse analysis demonstrated that all tests provide sufficient information to determine the required properties for this bilinear material model, the pull-out test was shown to provide more accurate approximations of the maximum pull-out force at the first and second peaks and the bend test was shown to produce more accurate approximations of the energy associated with pull-out. Good correlation with the baseline pull-out curve was found for both the isotropic and the kinematic hardening laws and it is concluded that behaviour during pull-out is insensitive to the hardening law. Sensitivity analysis and characterisation of the material model using an experimental pull-out curve demonstrated the importance of the coefficient of friction. Full characterisation using the pull-out curve therefore requires the solution to a three-variable problem: yield strength, tangent modulus and coefficient of friction. This was a suggested topic for further study. / Dissertation (MEng)--University of Pretoria, 2019. / Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering / MEng (Mech) / Unrestricted

While the increase in shear strength of Steel Fibre Reinforced Concrete (SFRC) is well recognized, it has yet to be found common application of this material in building structures and there is no existing national standard that treats SFRC in a systematic manner. The aim of the diploma work is to investigate the shear strength of fibre reinforced concrete beams and the available test data and analyse the latter against the mostpromising equations available in the literature. The equations investigated are:Narayanan and Darwish’s formula, the German, the RILEM and the Italian guidelines. Thirty articles, selected among over one hundred articles taken from literature, have been used to create the database that contains almost 600 beams tested in shear. This large number of beams has been decreased to 371 excluding all those beams and test that do not fall within the limitation stated for this thesis. Narayanan and Darwish’s formula can be utilized every time that the fibre percentage, the type of fibres, the beam dimensions, the flexural reinforcement and the concrete strength class have been defined. On the opposite, the parameters introduced in the German, the RILEM and the Italian guidelines always require a further characterization of the concrete (with bending test) in order to describe the post‐cracking behaviour. The parameters involved in the guidelines are the residual flexural tensile strengths according to the different test set‐ups. A method for predicting the residual flexural tensile strength from the knowledge of the fibre properties, the cylindrical compressive strength of the concrete and the amount of fibres percentage is suggested. The predictions of the shear strength, obtained using the proposed method for the residual flexural tensile strength, showed to be satisfactory when compared with the experimental results. A comparison among the aforementioned equations corroborate the validity of the empirical formulations proposed by Narayanan and Darwish nevertheless only the other equations provide a realistic assessments of the strength, toughness and ductility of structural elements subjected to shear loading. Over the three investigated equations, which work with the post‐cracking characterization of the material, the Italian guideline proposal is the one that, due to its wide domain of validity and the results obtained for the gathered database of beams, has been selected as the most reliable equation.

Thesis (MScEng)--Stellenbosch University, 2011. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Strain hardening cement‐based composites (SHCC) are fibre‐reinforced composites designed to form multiple fine cracks under tensile and flexural load. The cracks are controlled to small widths, whereby significant toughness, or energy dissipation, is realised on the one hand, and high resistance to gas and liquid ingress is maintained on the other hand. These two physical phenomena define application fields of SHCC, i.e. for instance elements of buildings and infrastructure for enhanced earthquake resistance, and protection of steel bars under service loads which lead to crack formation. Also exploiting the potential protection offered by SHCC to existing structures, thin overlays have been applied to existing dam faces, reinforced concrete retaining walls, water channels and RC road pavements. The layers vary between 20 and 40 mm in thickness. Considering the fibre length, usually 8 or 12 mm, as well as the application method, such thin layers may have dominantly two dimensional fibre orientation, with little or no component in the layer thickness direction. While several research groups have performed uniaxial tensile tests and flexural tests on SHCC specimens, little or no information is available on SHCC response to biaxial loading, as is to be expected in road pavement repair layers, or other repair layers. This paper reports the results of biaxial testing of 20 mm thick SHCC specimens produced in such a way to have dominantly two‐dimensional fibre orientation, and another group of specimens produced by cutting from larger specimens, whereby three‐dimensional fibre orientation was preserved in the resulting 20 mm thick specimens. Biaxial tests were performed in three quadrants, i.e. compressioncompression, compression‐tension, and tension‐tension. A clear fibre orientation‐related difference in the failure patterns involves out‐of‐plane splitting under biaxial compression of specimens with twodimensional fibre orientation, at significantly lower load, as opposed to in‐plane tensile splitting of specimens containing three‐dimensional fibre orientation. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Vervormingsverhardende sement‐gebaseerde saamgestelde materiale (SHCC) is veselversterke saamgestelde materiale wat ontwerp is om verskeie fyn krakies te vorm onder trekspanning en buig spanning. Die kraakbreedtes word beheer, waardeur betekenisvolle taaiheid verkry, of energie verlies beheer word aan die een kant, en die hoë weerstand teen die gas en die vloeistof penetrasie aan die ander kant gehandhaaf word. Hierdie twee fisiese verskynsels definieer die toepassingsvelde van SHCC, d.w.s vir byvoorbeeld elemente van geboue en infrastruktuur vir verbeterde aardbewing weerstand, en die beskerming van staal stawe onder die dienslaste wat lei vorming te kraak. By eksploitasie van die potensiële beskerming aangebied deur SHCC aan bestaande strukture, is dun oorlae op bestaande dam walle, versterkte beton keermure, water kanale en staal‐versterkte beton paaie gebruik. Die SHCC lae wissel tussen 20 en 40 mm in dikte. Met inagneming van die vesel lengte, gewoonlik 8 of 12 mm, sowel as die toepassingsmetode, kan so 'n dun lag ‘n oorheersend tweedimensionele vesel oriëntasie hê, met min of geen komponent in die rigting van die laag dikte nie. Terwyl verskeie navorsingsgroepe eenassige trektoetse en buigtoetse op SHCC monsters gedoen het; is daar min of geen inligting beskikbaar op SHCC se reaksie op biaksiale belasting, soos verwag kan word in die pad herstel lae, of ander herstel lae. Hierdie verslag rapporteer die resultate van die biaksiale toetsing van 20 mm dik SHCC monsters wat op so 'n manier gemaak word om dominante twee‐dimensionele vesel oriëntasie te hê, en 'n ander groep monsters wat deur die sny van groter monsters, waarvolgens die drie‐dimensionele vesel oriëntasie verseker is. Biaksiale toetse is uitgevoer in drie kwadrante, d.w.s druk‐druk, druk‐trek en trek‐trek. 'n Duidelike verskil in die falingspatrone, aan die hand van vesel oriëntasie, behels uit‐vlak splyting onder biaksiale toetsing van monsters met twee‐dimensionele vesel oriëntasie, op 'n aansienlik laer lading, in teenstelling met die in‐vlak trek splyting van monsters wat ‘n drie‐dimensionele vesel oriëntasie het.

In this thesis, new design concepts for arch bridges using ultra high-performance fibre-reinforced concrete are developed for spans of 50 to 400 m. These concepts are light-weight and efficient, and thus have the potential to significantly reduce the cost of construction. Lightness is achieved by the thinning of structural components and the efficient use of precompression in the arch, rather than by the decrease of bending stiffness. Using the advanced properties of the material, the design concepts were shown to reduce the consumption of concrete in arch bridges by more than 50% relative to arches built using conventional concrete technology. In addition to span length, other design parameters including span-to-rise ratio and deck-stiffening were considered, resulting in a total of seventy-two design concepts. Other important contributions made in this thesis include: (1) the development of a simple analytical model that describes the transition of shallow arches between pure arch behaviour and pure beam behaviour, (2) a comprehensive comparative study of 58 existing concrete arch bridges that characterizes the current state-of-the-art and serves as a valuable reference design tool, and (3) the development and experimental validation of general and simplified methods for calculating the capacity of slender ultra high-performance fibre-reinforced concrete members under compression and bending. The research presented in this thesis provides a means for designers to take full advantage of the high compressive and tensile strengths of the concrete and hence to exploit the economic potential offered by the material.

For members and flat slabs without shear reinforcement, the shear and punching shear strength are often the determining design criteria. These failure modes are characterized by a fragile behaviour implying possible partial or total collapse of the structure. Despite extensive research in this field, shear and punching shear in reinforced and prestressed concrete structures, remain complex phenomena so much that the current approach is often empirical or simplified. The ability of Steel Fibre Reinforced Concrete (SFRC) to reduce shear reinforcement in reinforced and prestressed concrete members and slabs,or even eliminate it, is supported by several experimental studies. However its practical application remains marginal mainly due to the lack of standard, procedures and rules adapted to its performance. The stationary processes in precast industry offer optimal possibilities for using high performance cementitious materials such as Self Compacting Concrete (SCC) and High Strength Concrete (HSC). For the author, the combination of High Performance Concrete and steel fibres is the following step in the development and the optimization of this industry. The High Performance Fibre Reinforced Concrete (HPFRC) stands between conventional SFRC and Ultra-High Performance Fibre Reinforced Concrete (UHPFRC). The HPFRC exhibiting a good strength/cost ratio is, thus, an alternative of UHPFRC for precast elements. The principal aim of this work was to analyse the shear and punching shear behaviour of HPFRC and UHPFRC structures without transversal reinforcement and to propose recommendations and design models adapted for practitioners. Several experimental studies on structural elements, i.e. beams and slabs, were undertaken for this purpose. Firstly, an original experimental campaign was performed on pre-tensioned members in HPFRC. A total number of six shear-critical beams of a 3.6 m span each, and two full scale beams of a 12 m span each, were tested in order to evaluate the shear and flexural strength. The principal parameter between the specimens was the fibres (...)

Neste trabalho investiga-se o comportamento resistente de lajes-cogumelo de concreto armado, analisando-se as possibilidades de melhoria de desempenho com relação ao fenômeno de punção, pelo emprego de concreto de alta resistência, pelo reforço com fibras de aço e pelo uso de armaduras transversais de combate à punção, através de ensaios de modelos de lajes-cogumelo quadradas que representam a ligação laje-pilar para o caso do pilar interno. Apresenta-se também uma revisão de conhecimentos sobre as lajes-cogumelo, o seu comportamento estrutural com ênfase no fenômeno da punção, e os principais conceitos sobre os concretos de alta resistência e os compósitos constituídos de matriz de cimento reforçada com fibras. Doze modelos de laje-cogumelo foram ensaiados com diferentes combinações de concreto de alta resistência, concreto de resistência convencional, armadura transversal e volume de fibras (0%, 0,75% e 1,5%). Um acréscimo significativo de resistência à punção foi observado, devido ao uso de concreto de alta resistência e à adição de fibras. A combinação de concreto de alta resistência com 1,5% de volume de fibras e armadura transversal proporcionaram o dobro de aumento na resistência à punção em relação ao modelo de concreto convencional sem armadura transversal e sem adição de fibras. A adição de fibras é a suposta responsável por cerca de 50% de acréscimo de resistência e o aumento da ductilidade. Outras comparações incluindo as previsões teóricas (Texto Base da NB1/94, CEB/90, AGI 318/89 e EUROCODE N.2) são comentadas. / This work investigates the behavior of reinforced concrete flat slabs, analysing the possibility of performance improvement, in relation to punching shear phenomenon, regarding to the use of high strength concrete, the addition of steel fibres and the use of transversal steel reinforcement against punching shear, through tests of flat slab square models that represent the slab-column connection, for the case of an interior column. lt introduce a revision of knowledge of flat slabs, their structural behavior with emphasis on the punching shear phenomenon, and the main concepts about high strength concretes and the composites made of cement matrix reinforced with fibres. Twelve flat slab models were tested in different combinations of high strength concrete, ordinary strength, shear reinforcement and steel fibre volume fraction (0%, 0,75% e 1,5%). A significant increase in the punching shear strength was observed, either due to the use of high strength and the addition of steel fibres. The combination of high strength concrete with 1,5% fibre volume fraction and shear reinforcement provide twice the punching shear resistance of an ordinary concrete strength model without shear reinforcement and without fibre. Fibre addition is supposed to be responsible by about 50% of the resistance improvement and the increase of ductility. Other comparisons including theoretical previsions (Texto Base da NB1/94, CEB/90, ACI 318/89 e EUROCODE N.2) are commented.

With the rise in hazards that structures are potentially subjected to these days, ranging from pre-contemplated terror attacks to accidental and natural disasters, safeguarding structures against such hazards has increasingly become a common design requirement. The extreme loading conditions associated with these hazards renders the concept of imposing generalized codes and standards guidelines for structural design unfeasible. Therefore, a general shift towards performance-based design is starting to dominate the structural design field. This study introduces a powerful structural analysis tool for reinforced concrete structures, possessing a high level of reliability in handling a wide range of typical and extreme loading conditions in a sophisticated structural framework. VecTor3, a finite element computer program previously developed at the University of Toronto for nonlinear analysis of three-dimensional reinforced concrete structures employing the well-established Modified Compression Field Theory (MCFT), has been further developed to serve as the desired tool. VecTor3 is extended to include analysis capabilities for extreme loading conditions, advanced reinforced concrete mechanisms, and new material types. For extreme loading conditions, an advanced coupled heat and moisture transfer algorithm is implemented in VecTor3 for the analysis of reinforced concrete structures subjected to fire. This algorithm not only calculates the transient temperature through the depth of concrete members, but also calculates the elevated pore pressure in concrete, which enables the prediction of the occurrence of localized thermally-induced spalling. Dynamic loading conditions are also extended to include seismic loading, in addition to blast and impact loading. Advancing the mechanisms considered, VecTor3 is developed to include the Disturbed Stress Field Model (DSFM), dowel action and buckling of steel reinforcement bars, geometric nonlinearity effects, strain rate effects for dynamic loading conditions, and the deterioration of mechanical properties at elevated temperatures for fire loading conditions. Finally, the newly-developed Simplified Diverse Embedment Model (SDEM) is implemented in VecTor3 to add analysis capability for steel fibre-reinforced concrete (SFRC). Various analyses covering a wide range of different structural members and loading conditions are carried out using VecTor3, showing good agreement with experimental results available in the literature. These analyses verify the reliability of the models, mechanisms, and algorithms incorporated in VecTor3.

With the rise in hazards that structures are potentially subjected to these days, ranging from pre-contemplated terror attacks to accidental and natural disasters, safeguarding structures against such hazards has increasingly become a common design requirement. The extreme loading conditions associated with these hazards renders the concept of imposing generalized codes and standards guidelines for structural design unfeasible. Therefore, a general shift towards performance-based design is starting to dominate the structural design field. This study introduces a powerful structural analysis tool for reinforced concrete structures, possessing a high level of reliability in handling a wide range of typical and extreme loading conditions in a sophisticated structural framework. VecTor3, a finite element computer program previously developed at the University of Toronto for nonlinear analysis of three-dimensional reinforced concrete structures employing the well-established Modified Compression Field Theory (MCFT), has been further developed to serve as the desired tool. VecTor3 is extended to include analysis capabilities for extreme loading conditions, advanced reinforced concrete mechanisms, and new material types. For extreme loading conditions, an advanced coupled heat and moisture transfer algorithm is implemented in VecTor3 for the analysis of reinforced concrete structures subjected to fire. This algorithm not only calculates the transient temperature through the depth of concrete members, but also calculates the elevated pore pressure in concrete, which enables the prediction of the occurrence of localized thermally-induced spalling. Dynamic loading conditions are also extended to include seismic loading, in addition to blast and impact loading. Advancing the mechanisms considered, VecTor3 is developed to include the Disturbed Stress Field Model (DSFM), dowel action and buckling of steel reinforcement bars, geometric nonlinearity effects, strain rate effects for dynamic loading conditions, and the deterioration of mechanical properties at elevated temperatures for fire loading conditions. Finally, the newly-developed Simplified Diverse Embedment Model (SDEM) is implemented in VecTor3 to add analysis capability for steel fibre-reinforced concrete (SFRC). Various analyses covering a wide range of different structural members and loading conditions are carried out using VecTor3, showing good agreement with experimental results available in the literature. These analyses verify the reliability of the models, mechanisms, and algorithms incorporated in VecTor3.

No description available.

In this thesis, new design concepts for arch bridges using ultra high-performance fibre-reinforced concrete are developed for spans of 50 to 400 m. These concepts are light-weight and efficient, and thus have the potential to significantly reduce the cost of construction. Lightness is achieved by the thinning of structural components and the efficient use of precompression in the arch, rather than by the decrease of bending stiffness. Using the advanced properties of the material, the design concepts were shown to reduce the consumption of concrete in arch bridges by more than 50% relative to arches built using conventional concrete technology. In addition to span length, other design parameters including span-to-rise ratio and deck-stiffening were considered, resulting in a total of seventy-two design concepts. Other important contributions made in this thesis include: (1) the development of a simple analytical model that describes the transition of shallow arches between pure arch behaviour and pure beam behaviour, (2) a comprehensive comparative study of 58 existing concrete arch bridges that characterizes the current state-of-the-art and serves as a valuable reference design tool, and (3) the development and experimental validation of general and simplified methods for calculating the capacity of slender ultra high-performance fibre-reinforced concrete members under compression and bending. The research presented in this thesis provides a means for designers to take full advantage of the high compressive and tensile strengths of the concrete and hence to exploit the economic potential offered by the material.