Mechanical properties of high-performance hybrid fibre-reinforced concrete at elevated temperatures

Abstract

Deterioration of concrete’s integrity under elevated temperature requires an alteration in its composition to have better thermal stability. Fibre-reinforced concrete has shown significant improvements in concrete strength and this paper aimed to investigate the influence of steel (ST) and polypropylene (PP) fibres on the behaviour of high-performance concrete (HPC) exposed to elevated temperatures. Six mixtures were prepared and cast by adding one or two types of polypropylene fibre (54 and 9 mm) at 0.25 or 0.5% and either singly or in a hybrid combination, along with a fixed volumetric content at 1% of five-dimensional hooked steel (5DH) fibres. At the age of 28 days, samples were heated to the targeted temperature of 800◦C and cooled down naturally to the laboratory temperature. Visual inspection, flexural, split tensile and compressive strengths were examined before and after the exposure to elevated temperatures. Results exhibited that the hybridization of long and short PP fibres, along with the ST fibres, has notably improved all residual mechanical properties of HPC and kept the integrity of concrete after exposure to elevated temperatures. In addition, PP fibres can significantly prevent spalling, but ST fibres were ineffective in mitigating explosive spalling in beams specimens.