Simulation of steel fibre reinforced concrete using RBCS discrete model

Abstract

As a complementary part of a previously developed discrete model, Rigid Body Coupled Spring (RBCS), the model is extended to simulate and predict the behaviour of Steel Fibre Reinforced Concrete (SFRC) by modifying mesoscopic shear material model and introducing fibre contribution to mesoscopic tensile material model with respect to the inclined fibre pull-out behaviour. Several types of rounded-straight steel fibre with various volume fractions were used in these simulations and the outcome was compared with related experimental studies. Studied cases include uniaxial compressive behaviour, direct tension behaviour, flexural and direct shear behaviour. The results have confirmed the success of this approach in the studied cases.