Flexural toughness characteristics of self-compacting concrete incorporating steel and polypropylene fibres

Fibre-reinforced self-compacting concrete (FRSCC) is a relatively new composite material which congregates the benefits of the SCC technology with the profits derived from the fibre addition to a brittle cementitious matrix. Fibres improve many of the properties of SCC elements including tensile strength, ductility, toughness, energy absorption capacity, and fracture toughness. Although the available research regarding the influence of fibres on the properties of FRSCC is limited, this paper investigates the flexural toughness characteristics of SCC incorporating steel and polypropylene fibres. An extensive experimental program is carried out to monitor and record the flexural strength of SCC and FRSCC prism specimens under four point static flexural loading. For this purpose, four different SCC mixes including plain SCC, steel, polypropylene, and hybrid FRSCC mixes are considered in the test program. The flexural strength was tested after 3, 7, 14, 28, 56, and 91 days. The flexural toughness parameters were obtained using procedure laid down in ASTM C 1018, JSCE, Banthia & Trottier and ACI 544 methods.