Slurry Infiltrated Fibre Concrete (SIFCON) is produced by a process in which fibres are put into an empty mould, after which the fibres are infiltrated by a cement slurry. Generally, the infiltration of the slurry into the layer of fibres is carried out under intensive vibration. This research has investigated the development of cement slurries which do not require to be vibrated when SIFCON is produced. A new test was developed to assess the effect of materials and admixtures on the infiltration properties of cement based slurries. Two slurries with different strengths were developed and applied for production of SIFCON elements with fibre contents of up to 11 percent. Samples of self-compacting SIFCON were produced and tested for compressive and flexural strength. The effect of strength of slurry used was compared and as expected the high strength of SIFCON was obtained by samples produced from 'high' strength slurry. A significant anisotropy of SIFCON was underlined by samples with different orientation of fibres. An 'edge effect' was investigated on 'cut' and 'cast' samples and a decrease in flexural strength of 'cut' samples was found. A new behaviour was observed on SIFCON in compression in large deformations. In these deformations SIFCON increased its strength. This behaviour is usually typical for a metal. Full scale frames were successfully produced using self-compacting concrete and selfcompacting SIFCON for comer parts of the frames. The results highlighted problems relating to the anisotropy of SIFCON. The addition of SIFCON parts in frames did not show any significant improvement of strength of the frames. Moreover, unsuitable placement of fibres caused a significant decrease in strength in a structure. The focus of this project was to improve knowledge about self-compacting SIFCON and so increase acceptance of SIFCON for application in structures.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:398324 |
| Date | January 2004 |
| Creators | Svermova, Lucie |
| Publisher | University of the West of Scotland |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
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