Inferences on Strength and Ductility of High Performance Concrete Mixed with Steel and Macro-synthetic Fibres

Concrete/shotcrete has been a versatile construction material since the nineteenth century. Day by day, the performance of concrete has been improving to meet the needs of various construction industries. In the above aspect, high-performance fibre-reinforced concrete (FRC) plays a vital role in that short-fibres have been mixed randomly to improve the pre- and post-cracking behaviour of the concrete and hence toughness increases. To a greater extent, the above performance can achieve when combining two different types of fibres (i.e. hybrid fibre) rather than using any one fibre type. In general, rigid and flexible fibres have amalgamated into ‘hybrid fibres’. Many researchers have generally used steel fibres as ‘rigid fibre' and also widely used polypropylene fibres as ‘flexible fibre' on hybrid fibre-reinforced concrete (HFRC). However, there is the scope of using other types of fibres, especially polymeric/flexible-based fibres like polyolefin fibre which are merely equivalent to the characteristics of rigid fibre on the HFRC. The present study focuses strengths and ductility of the ‘hybrid effect based on the fibre constitutive response’ of the 3D hooked-end steel-cum-polyolefin HF–RC was evaluated experimentally. The variables include the total volume fraction (Vf) and proportions of hybrid fibres [namely, steel (S): polyolefin (P)]. The salient inferences in respect of the above were systematically evaluated and then highlighted the role and trend of the mixed fibres in the HFRC composites.