SFRCS for Concrete Roads in Heavily Trafficked Situations

The concrete slab is the main structural component of the road. It transmits loads to the sub-base. SFRCs (Steel fiber reinforced concretes) can be used in the road-base as a structural part of the road. Steel fibers allow greater joint spacing in road construction; they have a significant positive effect on both fracture energy and flexural strength of concrete, which are very important for concrete roads in heavily trafficked situations. The test methods chosen in this study were American and Nordic methods. This study contains combined effect of aspect ratio and content of steel fibers on the mechanical behavior, toughness indices and specific fracture energies of SFRCs. The steel fibers with hooked ends were used in the presented study. The area under the loaddisplacement curve is a measure of the energy absorbed in the tests. This measure is defined as the toughness. The indices evaluated were toughness indices as defined in ASTM C1018. The residual strength factors were also determined according to the same standard. It can be concluded that both aspect ratio and amount of steel fiber greatly affect the post-peak response of SFRCs. These two factors also play an important role in toughness. The experimental results show that the increase of the content and aspect ratio of the steel fibers improves the toughness of SFRC.