The Way Ahead is Fibre-Reinforced

For several decades steel wire manufacturers produce steel fibres which can be mixed with concrete to improve its characteristics. FIBRICON® is a multi-fibre concrete – a combination of concrete and three types of fibres. The fibre mix consists of drawn or rolled steel fibres with profiled end hooks or anchors. The fibres impact on the various phases of the concrete. From 2000 onwards several projects in the Netherlands were started and all applications are still crack free. The main applications are fibre mix concrete floors up to 3000 – 4000 m2 without joints, reefer warehouses up to 3000 m2 without joints, and road construction. In 2002 it was applied during the large renovation of a concrete plant in Delft, The Netherlands (Figure 1). The roads around the plant traditionally suffered from heavy loads and showed many cracks and damages. Over 200 concrete trucks (15 – 55 tons) make use of these roads per day. The roads around the plant had to be renewed, but this renewal could not take too much time in order to avoid blocking the output of the plant. The construction time was limited to seven days (as opposed to 28 days with traditional concrete).