Experimental and theoretical investigation for improving torsional strength of reinforced concrete beams with hybrid fibers
摘要
In this paper, experimental studies were carried out for enhancement the torsional behavior of reinforced concrete beams using steel fibers (SF), polyvinyl alcohol fibers (PVA) and carbon fibers (CF). Nine reinforced concrete beams were tested under pure torsion and loaded till failure. The first specimen was control which fabricated without any fibers. Steel fibers and PVA fibers were used separately with varying fiber ratio such as 1% and 1.5% by volume of concrete. Hybrid fibers of ( SF and PVA) and ( PVA and CF) were incorporated with varying fiber content of 0.5% and 0.75% in term of volume to cast the hybrid fiber reinforced concrete (HFRC). The results of torsional moment, angle of twist, crack patterns, ductility, energy absorption and torsional stiffness were presented in this paper. Experimental studies clarified that the use of different types of fiber such as SF, PVA and CF improved torsional moment and angle of twist. The achieved enhancements in the maximum torsional strength were 111%, 64%, 91% and 36% when a fiber of (1.5% SF), (1.5% PVA), (0.75% SF and 0.75% PVA) and (0.75% PVA and 0.75% CF) added, respectively. Non-linear finite element analysis (NLFEA) was performed using ANSYS to carry out a validation with the experimental studies. A good agreement was noticed from the comparison between the experimental results and the finite element predictions. Finally, this paper developed a proposed model to take the effect of fiber on the maximum torsional moment of hybrid fiber reinforced concrete (HFRC) beams. The ultimate torsion predictions of the proposed model were validated with 74 experimental test results in the current study and from previous studies in the literature. The comparison showed that the proposed model performs well in predicting the ultimate torsional moment of hybrid fiber reinforced concrete (HFRC) beams.