• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.29 no.6
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• pp.53-62
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• 2013

A 5-20 cm thick shocrete has been routinely constructed for NATM tunneling method to stabilize and confine the excavated rock of tunnel construction site. A $40kg/m^3$ of steel fibers are usually mixed into such shotcrete but these steel fibers may not be evenly distributed depending on shotcrete machines, mixing ratios and excavated rock conditions. In this study, square column shotcrete-mimicked concrete specimens of $15cm{\times}15cm{\times}55cm$ were prepared with 5 equal layers and 5 or 20% cement ratio. The specimens were prepared with different reinforced-patterns: non-reinforced, middle layer-reinforced, 1, 3, and 5 layers-reinforced, or all layers reinforced. The specimens were air-cured for 7 days and tested for flexural strength. The influence of steel-fiber distribution on flexural strength and toughness of shotcrete-mimicked concrete specimens was investigated. In the case of a specimen with cement ratio of 20%, a flexural strength increased as a number of fiber-reinforced layer increased. The flexural strength of one-layer reinforced specimen showed 20% less than that of evenly fiber-distributed specimen. On the other hand, a specimen with cement ratio of 5% decreased as the number of fiber-reinforced layers increased. A toughness index increased as the number of fiber-reinforced layers increased, regardless of cement ratios. The toughness index of evenly fiber-distributed specimen showed 2-3 times as large as that of one-layer reinforced specimen.