AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY ON TENSION SOFTENING BEHAVIOR OF FIBER REINFORCED CONCRETE

The project aims to study tensile softening behavior of fiber reinforced concrete .Concrete is very much weak in tension but by addition of randomly oriented short crimped steel fibers will change the behavior from brittle to ductile. In the present work, the steel fibers were added at the volume fraction, being 0%, 0.5%, 1%, 1.5% to the normal strength concrete and high strength concrete. The effects of steel fibbers on the tensile behavior of high and normal strength are investigated. In the project work the tensile behavior of concrete reinforced with steel fiber contents was assessed performing direct tensile tests .The fracture energy of conventional SFRC was independent of the specimen size. The fracture energy of SFRC with high strength matrix and normal strength matrix was dependent on the tensile strength of the steel fibers. From the results found that with an increase in % of fibers the tensile softening behavior increases and fracture energy also increases.