Flexural Performance of Rubberized Concrete Beams Reinforced with Waste Tyre Steel Fibres
摘要
This study examines the static flexural behaviour of High-Performance Reinforced Green Control Concrete (GCC) and Reinforced Rubberized Concrete (RuC) beams. The GCC, serving as the control, had a compressive strength of 100.2 MPa, while the RuC reached a compressive strength of 86.4 MPa. The addition of 1% Waste Tyre Steel Fibers (WTSF) reduced the compressive strength of rubberized concrete by 5.4% compared to unreinforced plain RuC. When the WTSF content increased to 2%, compressive strength further declined, showing a 19.8% reduction relative to the 1% WTSF RuC mix. In terms of flexural performance, a 2% WTSF content significantly enhanced flexural strength, reaching 10.3 MPa, a 9.6% increase over the GCC mix. Structurally, RuC beams reinforced with both steel rebar and WTSF exhibited enhanced crack control and significantly improved load-bearing capacity. The inclusion of 1% WTSF resulted in a nearly fourfold increase in cracking deflection, rising from 1.60 mm in base RuC beam to 6.50 mm. Remarkably, the RuC beam achieved a peak load slightly higher than the GCC beam despite the incorporation of 10% waste tyre rubber (WTR), which tends to initiate early cracking. The addition of 1% WTSF also increased the peak deflection to 35.20 mm, a substantial improvement compared to RuC without WTSF.