Shear Strength of Fiber Reinforced Recycled Aggregate Concrete

Abstract

In this paper, shear strength of fiber reinforced recycled concrete was investigated. A Self Consolidated Concrete (SCC) matrix with 100% coarse recycled aggregate and different types of fibers were used in the study. Steel (3D and 5D), synthetic and hybrid fibers with a volume fraction of 0.75% were added to the concrete matrix to prepare eight beams. In addition, two beams were cast without fibers as control specimens. All beams were prepared without shear reinforcement and were tested to evaluate concrete contribution to the shear capacity. In addition, optical images were captured to allow for full-field displacement measurements using Digital Image Correlation (DIC). The results showed about 23.44–64.48% improvement in the average concrete shear capacity for fiber-reinforced beams when compared to that of the control specimens. The percentage improvement was affected by fiber type and the steel fiber beams achieved the best performance. The addition of the fiber delayed the crack initiation and improved the post-cracking and ductile behavior of all beams. Moreover, the experimental results were compared to those predicted by codes and proposed equations found in the literature for concrete strength with and without fibers.