Comparative evaluation of early age toughness parameters in fiber reinforced concrete

Early age strength development is a major consideration for design and construction processes such as the shotcrete mixtures used for tunneling applications. Adding the fibers to high strength concrete helps in resisting potential early age thermal and shrinkage cracking in addition to maintaining long-term strength. The post cracking tensile strength is one of the critical safety parameters to insure a safe level of ground support. Results of several bending tests on early-age fiber reinforced concrete are presented as load-deflection responses. A strain softening response is used to model the behavior of different types of fiber reinforced concrete and simulate the experimental flexural response. Closed form equations for moment-curvature response of a rectangular beam in conjunction with crack localization rules are utilized. As a result, the stress distribution that considers a shifting neutral axis can be simulated which provides a more accurate representation of the residual strength of the fiber cement composites. The analysis is performed to evaluate effects of age and fiber type on back calculated tensile stress strain response, along with experimental and simulated flexural load-deflection curves. The back-calculated tensile post cracking strengths are compared and correlated with the corresponding parameters used by ASTM, JCI, and RILEM methods and scale factors for the elastic methods are proposed which are in-line with the current fib Model Code. Caution must be exercised in application of results from the standard test methods due to the overestimation of the residual strength parameters that are based on elastic approaches.