The fibre reinforced concrete (FRC) in question is a composite material, which contains of concrete as the bedding material of the fibres and distributed fibres. The concrete itself is a bi-component material: consisting of aggregate frame filled by cement grout (water, cement and sand). The concrete is a quasi-brittle material which has a residual tension strength after crack, decreasing to zero during crack opening. This residual tension strength is mostly the function of the aggregate and it produce the fracture energy. This fracture energy could be increased by added fibres. The fracture energy of the FRC could be divided to two parts: fracture energy of the plain concrete and added fracture energy by the fibres. The fracture energy of the concrete mostly depends on the size and type of the aggregates, while the added fracture energy depends on the connection of the fibres and the cement grout.
The fibres are connecting directly to the cement grout, so the question arises: do the aggregate has any influence on the added fracture energy, or is it partially or totally independent from that. In this article the answer is researched by series of synthetic fibre reinforced bending beam tests.
#EET #FRC #addedfractureenergy #fractureenergy
