The main structural objectives in column design are strength and ductility. For higher strength concretes these design objectives are offset by generally poor concrete ductility and early spalling of the concrete cover. When fibres are added to the concrete the post peak characteristics are enhanced, both in tension and in compression. Most of the available experimental data, on fibre reinforced concrete and fibre reinforced high strength concrete columns, suggest that an improvement in both ductility and load carrying capacity due to the inclusion of the fibres. In this thesis the ductility and strength of fibre reinforced high strength concrete are investigated to evaluate the effect of the different parameters on the performance of columns. The investigation includes both experimental and the numerical approaches with 56 high strength fibre reinforced concrete columns being tested. The concrete strength ranged between 80 and 100 MPa and the columns were reinforced with 1, 2 or 2.6 percent, by weight, of end hooked steel fibres. The effect of corrugated Polypropylene fibres on the column performance was also examined. No early spalling of the cover was observed in any of the steel fibre reinforced column tested in this study. A numerical model was developed for analysis of fibre and non-fibre reinforced eccentrically loaded columns. The column is modelled as finite layers of reinforced concrete. Two types of layers are used, one to represent the hinged zone and the second the unloading portion of the column. As the concrete in the hinged layers goes beyond the peak for the stress verus strain in the concrete the section will continue to deform leading to a localised region within a column. The numerical model is compared with the test data and generally shows good correlation. Using the developed model, the parameters that affect ductility in fibre-reinforced high strength concrete columns are investigated and evaluated. A design model relating column ductility with confining pressure is proposed that includes the effects of the longitudinal reinforcement ratio, the loading eccentricity and the fibre properties and content and design recommendations are given.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/188000 |
| Date | January 2005 |
| Creators | Zaina, Mazen Said, Civil & Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, UNSW |
| Publisher | Awarded by:University of New South Wales. School of Civil and Environmental Engineering |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | Copyright Mazen Said Zaina, http://unsworks.unsw.edu.au/copyright |
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