Mechanical and Fracture Parameters of Ultra-High Performance Fiber Reinforcement Concrete Cured via Steam and Water: Optimization of Binder Content

Abstract

An investigational study is conducted to examine the effects of different amounts of binders and curing methods on the mechanical behavior and ductility of Ultra-High Performance Fiber Reinforced Concretes (UHPFRCs) that contain 2% of Micro Steel Fiber (MSF). The aim is to find an optimum binder content for the UHPFRC mixes. The same water-to-binder ratio (w/b) of 0.12 was used for both water curing (WC) and steam curing (SC). Based on the curing methods, two series of eight mixes of UHPFRCs containing different binder contents ranging from 850 to 1200 kg/m3 with an increment of 50 kg/m3 were produced. Mechanical properties such as compressive strength, splitting tensile strength, static elastic module, flexural tensile strength and the ductility behavior were investigated. This study revealed that the mixture of 1150 kg/m3 binder content exhibited the highest values of the experimental results such as a compressive strength greater than 190 MPa, a splitting tensile strength greater than 12.5 MPa, and a modulus of elasticity higher than 45 GPa. The results also show that all of the improvements began to slightly decrease at 1200 kg/m3 of the binder content. On the other hand, it was concluded that SC resulted in higher mechanical performance and ductility behavior than WC.