• Advances in concrete construction
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.335-345
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• 2021

It is known from the literature that there are relatively few studies on the engineering properties of ultra-high performance concrete (UHPC) in early age. In fact, in order to ensure the safety of UHPC during construction and sufficient durability and long-term performance, it is necessary to explore the early behavior of UHPC. The test parameters (test control factors) investigated included the percentage of cement replaced by silica fume (SF), the percentage of cement replaced by ultra-fine silica powder (SFP), the amount of steel fiber (volume percent), and the amount of polypropylene fiber (volume percentage). The engineering properties of UHPC in the fresh mixing stage and at the age of 7 days were investigated. These properties include freshly mixed properties (slump, slump flow, and unit weight) and hardened mechanical properties (compressive strength, elastic modulus, flexural strength, and splitting tensile strength). Moreover, the effects of the experimental factors on the performance of the tested UHPC were evaluated by range analysis and variance analysis. The experiment results showed that the compressive strength of the C8 mix at the age of 7 days was highest of 111.5 MPa, and the compressive strength of the C1 mix at the age of 28 days was the highest of 128.1 MPa. In addition, the 28-day compressive strength in each experimental group increased by 13%-34% compared to the 7-day compressive strength. In terms of hardened mechanical properties, the performance of each experimental group was superior to that of the control group (without fiber and without additional binder materials), with considerable improvement, and the experimental group did not produce explosive or brittle damage after the test. Further, the flexural test process found that all test specimens exhibited deflection-hardening behavior, resulting in continued to increase carrying capacity after the first crack.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.131-139
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• 2021

This study assessed the use of zeolite with high absorption performance in landscape paving concrete as a substitute for aggregate. The absorption performance and strength properties of paving concrete were investigated according to the replacement rate of the zeolite coarse aggregate, and the mechanical properties were investigated through strength tests. The absorption rate of the zeolite aggregate was 14%, which is 2.5 times higher than that of general aggregate. When zeolite coarse aggregate is applied to paving concrete, the absorption rate increases according to the replacement rate. The absorption rate was 5.2% at a replacement rate of 50%, which was 42% higher than that of general paving concrete. The compressive strength increased to 20% of the replacement rate and decreased at a higher replacement, but all the strengths in the construction standard code were satisfied. The flexural strength satisfied the code up to a replacement rate of 10%, but the strength decreased with increasing replacement rate, and the splitting tensile strength was greater than that of paving concrete using general aggregate up to a 20% replacement rate. Overall, zeolite coarse aggregate can be applied as a substitute.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.82 no.1
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• pp.93-105
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• 2022

The brittleness of concrete can be overcome by fiber reinforcement that controls the crack mechanisms of concrete. Corrosion-related durability issues can be prevented by synthetic fibers (SFs), while macro synthetic fibers have proven to be particularly effective to provide ductility and toughness after cracks. This experimental study has been performed to investigate the comparative flexural and mechanical behavior of four different macro-synthetic fiber-reinforced concretes (SFRCs). Two polyamide fibers (SF1 and SF2) with different aspect ratios and two different polypropylene fiber types (SF3 and SF4) were used in production of SFRCs. Four different SFRCs and reference concrete were compared for their influences on the toughness, compressive strength, elastic modulus, flexural strength, residual strength and splitting tensile strength. The outcomes of the study reveal that the flowability of reference mixture decreases after addition of SFs and the air voids of all SFRC mixtures increased with the addition of macro-synthetic fibers except SFRC2 mixture whose air content is the same as the reference mixture. The results also revealed that with the inclusion of SFs, 11.34% reduction in the cube compressive strength was noted for SFRC4 based on that of reference specimens and both reference concrete and SFRC exhibited nearly similar cylindrical compressive strength. Results illustrated that SFRC1 and SFRC4 mixtures consistently provide the highest and lowest flexural toughness values of 36.4 joule and 27.7 joule respectively. The toughness values of SFRC3 and SFRC4 are very near to each other.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.257-267
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• 2022

Two different types of rubber aggregates (40 mesh rubber powder and 1-4 mm rubber particles respectively) were devised to substitute fine aggregates at 10%, 15%, 20% and 30% by volume in self-compacting concrete to investigate their basic mechanical properties. The results show that with the increase of rubber content, the reduction of compressive strength, splitting tensile strength and static modulus of elasticity gradually increase, and energy dissipation performance gradually increase. The rubber addition significantly reduces brittleness and decelerates damaged process. Whilst, the effect of rubber particles is greater when they are finer. Considering the mechanical properties, the optimal rubber content is 10%. It is recommended that the rubber volume content in rubberized concrete (RC) should not be higher than 20%. In addition, a constitutive model under uniaxial compression was proposed basing on the strain equivalent principle of Lemaitre and the damage theory, which was in good agreement with the test curves.

• Advances in concrete construction
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.1-20
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• 2023

This study presents the experimental results performed to evaluate the effects of Polyvinyl-alcohol (PVA) and Polypropylene (PP) fibers on the fresh and residual mechanical properties of the hybrid fiber reinforced SCC before and after the exposure of 250℃, 500℃ and 750℃ temperatures. The compressive and splitting tensile strength, modulus of rupture (MOR), ultrasonic pulse velocity (UPV) as well as toughness and weight loss were investigated at different temperatures. PVA and PP fibers were added into SCC mixtures having only macro steel fiber and also having binary hybridization of both macro and micro steel fiber. The results showed that the use of micro steel fiber replaced by macro steel fiber improved the fresh and hardened properties compared to the use of only macro steel fiber. Moreover, it was emphasized that PVA or PP enhanced the residual flexural performance of SCC, generally, while it negatively influenced the workability, weight loss, UPV and the residual strengths with regards to the use of single steel fiber and binary steel fiber hybridization. Compared to the effect of synthetic fibers, PP had slightly more positive effect in the view of workability while PVA enhanced the residual mechanical properties more.

• Magazine of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.91-100
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• 1990

In most of the structural members with initial cracks(or initial notches), the strength tends to decmase as the member size increases. This phenomenon is known as size effect. Among the structural materials of glass, metal or concrete, etc., concrete represents the size effect even without initial crack. According to the previous size effect law, the concrete mem¬ber of very large size can resist little stress. Actually, however, even the large size member can resist some stress if there is no initial crack made artificially, consequently showing a rather milder strength reduction compared to the severe strength reduction by tbe previously derived size effect law. In this study, the theoretical size effect law previously derived by Z.P. Bazant was discussed based on nonlinear fracture mechanics of concrete structures With dissimilar initial cracks, and the prediction models are proposed by regression analysis with the existing test data of more large size speciments for splitting tensile strength, shear strength and uniaxial compressive strength tests.

• Advances in concrete construction
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.239-246
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• 2019

Substitution of natural fine aggregates with industrial by-products like precious slag balls (PS Balls) offers various advantages like technical, economic and environmental which are very important in the present era of sustainability in construction industry. PS balls are manufactured by subjecting steel slag to slag atomizing Technology (SAT) which imparts them the desirable characteristics of fine aggregates. The main objective of this research paper is to assess the feasibility of producing good quality concrete by using PS balls, to identify the potential benefits by their incorporation and to provide solution for increasing their utilization in concrete applications. The study investigates the effect of PS balls as partial replacement of fine aggregates in various percentages (20%, 40%, 60%, 80% and 100%) on mechanical properties of concrete such as compressive strength, splitting tensile strength, and flexural strength. The optimum mix was found to be at 40% replacement of PS balls with maximum strength of 62.89 MPa at 28 days curing. Permeability of concrete was performed and it resulted in a more durable concrete with replacement of PS balls at 40% and 100% as fine aggregates. These two specific values were considered as optimum replacement is 40% and also the maximum possible replacement is 100%. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) analysis was done and it was found that the PS balls in concrete were unaffected and with optimum percentage of PS balls as fine aggregates in concrete resulted in good strength and less cracks. Hence, it is possible to produce good workable concrete with low water to cement ratio and higher strength concrete by incorporating PS balls.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.333-341
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• 2021

Steel slag, an industrial reject from the steel rolling process, has been identified as one of the suitable, environmentally friendly materials for concrete production. Given that the coarse aggregate portion represents about 70% of concrete constituents, other economic approaches have been found in the use of alternative materials such as steel slag in concrete. Unfortunately, a standard framework for its application is still lacking. Therefore, this study proposed functional model equations for the determination of strength properties (compression and splitting tensile) of steel slag aggregate concrete (SSAC), using gene expression programming (GEP). The study, in the experimental phase, utilized steel slag as a partial replacement of crushed rock, in steps 20%, 40%, 60%, 80%, and 100%, respectively. The predictor variables included in the analysis were cement, sand, granite, steel slag, water/cement ratio, and curing regime (age). For the model development, 60-75% of the dataset was used as the training set, while the remaining data was used for testing the model. Empirical results illustrate that steel aggregate could be used up to 100% replacement of conventional aggregate, while also yielding comparable results as the latter. The GEP-based functional relations were tested statistically. The minimum absolute percentage error (MAPE), and root mean square error (RMSE) for compressive strength are 6.9 and 1.4, and 12.52 and 0.91 for the train and test datasets, respectively. With the consistency of both the training and testing datasets, the model has shown a strong capacity to predict the strength properties of SSAC. The results showed that the proposed model equations are reliably suitable for estimating SSAC strength properties. The GEP-based formula is relatively simple and useful for pre-design applications.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.313-320
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• 2013

In this study, performance of fiber-reinforced polymer-modified mortar was studied for the development of eco-friendly materials for high performance repair and reinforcement. The general cement mortar and eco-friendly UM resin was mixed with a certain percentage for increased durability. To increase the strength of the polymer-modified mortar, PVA fiber, steel fiber and hybrid fiber were added at a constant rate. Hybrid fiber is contains the same percentage of PVA fiber and steel fiber. In order to determine the strength properties of fiber-reinforced polymer-modified mortar, the compressive strength test, the splitting tensile strength test and the flexural strength test were performed. And, in order to determine the durability properties of fiber-reinforced polymer-modified mortar, water absorption test and chemical resistance test were performed. From the experimental results, polymer-modified mortar using UM resin was improved durability. And the tensile strength and flexural strength increased, which were the vulnerability of fiber reinforced polymer-modified mortar. From this study, fiber-reinforced polymer-modified mortar using eco-friendly UM resin can be used to repair and reinforcement for the external exposure of concrete structures to improve the durability.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Hazard Mitigation
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• v.2 no.2 s.5
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• pp.61-72
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• 2002

The optimum fiber and asphalt binder contents were decided on the base of the Mashall mix design method. To compare the mechanical characteristics between the conventional(dense-graded 20) and the fiber-reinforced mixtures, indirect tension tests were conducted under three temperatures(5, 20, 60$^{\circ}C$). In particular, the wheel tracking tests were performed to evaluate the rutting resistances of the mixtures. Test results showed that the indirect tensile strength of fiber-reinforced asphalt concrete was higher than that of conventional one. The toughness of fiber-reinforced mixture was 1.27 to 1.97 times higher than that of conventional one, depending upon the temperature. In addition, the results of wheel tracking tests and the retained indirect splitting tension tests conducted at $60^{\circ}C$ revealed that the resistance to permanent deformation of fiber-reinforced mixture was stronger than that of the conventional one.