Impact of Polypropylene Fiber on the Mechanical and Physical Properties of Pervious Concrete: An Experimental Investigation

Abstract

It is important to balance the characteristics of pervious concrete, such as mechanical, physical, and durability properties. To obtain a better performance, adding fibers is very effective. In this study, samples with different polypropylene fiber content (0 kg/m3, 3 kg/m3, 6 kg/m3, and 9 kg/m3) were designed to test the strength, porosity, permeability, acid corrosion behavior, and low-temperature performance of pervious concrete. It can be found from the experimental results that, compared to the control samples (without the addition of fibers), when the mixing amount of fiber is 6 kg/m3, the cubic compressive strength, axial compressive strength, and flexural tensile strength increase by 35.32%, 37.16%, and 13.04%, respectively; the porosity and permeability coefficient decrease by 36.32 % and 49.30%, respectively; the strength of samples with acidic corrosion times of 0 d, 20 d, 40 d, and 60 d increased by 30.96%, 17.41%, 15.47%, and 20.87%, respectively; and the strength of samples at temperatures of −20 °C, −10 °C, 0 °C, and 25 °C decrease by 14.17%, 15.45%, 22.97%, and 30.96%, respectively. The meso-structure of pervious concrete is studied using industrial computed tomography (ICT) to investigate the relationships between the characteristics. It could be seen that the optimal dosage of polypropylene fiber is 6 kg/m3, which is more suitable for application in engineering.