Determination of the residual stress-crack opening relationship of SFRC flexural members

Abstract

Steel fibre reinforced concrete (SFRC) has become widespread material in building areas such as underground shotcrete structures or industrial floors. However, due to the absence of universally accepted guidelines for SFRC, application fields of this material are still limited. This paper deals with assessment of the residual stresses of tensile SFRC. An adequate method for determination of residual stress-crack opening relation, based on test data of three-point bending beams is proposed. To verify the analysis results a numerical modelling is utilized employing a nonlinear finite element analysis program. Simulated load-crack width curves were compared with the experimental data validating adequacy of the proposed model.