Seismic and structural behavior of RCC beams made with hybrid fiber reinforced self consolidating concrete

Abstract

Concrete is one of the significant building materials in the field of construction which plays an important role that it provides strength and durability properties to the structure. In recent days, modern construction is to improvise the above mentioned properties of concrete with the available sustainable building materials. Self consolidating concrete (SCC) has the ability to make a viscous concrete which can be considered as the pump able concrete with no segregation and compacted itself by its own weight. In this study, fly ash based SCC of grade M40 (1:1.85:1.14) was considered to produce RCC beams of cross section 150 x 200mm of length 1800mm. In order to increase the strength of SCC and to minimize the effect of micro cracks in the RCC beams, hybrid fibers which compose of steel and polypropylene fibers were added into the concrete mixes. Totally 12 beam specimens were prepared with fiber reinforced SCC to check the structural behavior of RCC beams. Finite element modeling software package of ANSYS was used to analyze the structural behavior of RCC beams numerically and the results were compared with the experimental results. From the experimental investigation, the seismic behavior of RCC beams under varying loading condition was examined such as ductility factor, energy absorption capacity and stiffness degradation of the beams.