Experimental studies of road slabs

Abstract

Abstract The results of experimental studies of bearing capacity and cracking resistance of road slab models made of steel-fiber concrete according to the span loading scheme are presented. The bearing capacity of the models has been fixed at 27.96 kN, which is 2 times higher than the load corresponding to the beginning of cracking (14.8 kN). At the moment of bearing capacity loss, the height of compressed zone was 1 cm, which is one third of its original size. The relative strains before the first crack appeared were 0.1175×10-4 and 0.235×10-4 in the compressed and stretched zones, respectively, and similar limiting relative strains reached values of 3.715×10-4 and 9.235×10-4. The maximum crack opening width was substantially less than in the same tests of the slabs without dispersion reinforcement and was 0.3 mm, which is explained by the more ductile properties of steel fiber concrete, which prevent crack opening. The final deflection in the middle of the plate model span was 10.4 mm, which is 5.5 times greater than the deflection before cracking began (1.9 mm).