Mechanical properties of SFRHSC with metakaolin and ground pumice: Experimental and predictive study

The mechanical properties of steel fiber reinforced high strength concrete (SFRHSC) made with binary and ternary blends of metakaolin (MK) and ground pumice (GP) are investigated in this study. The investigated properties are ultrasonic pulse velocity (U_pv, compressive strength (f_c), flexural strength (f_f) and splitting tensile strength (f_st) of SFRHSC. A total of 16 steel fiber reinforced concrete mixtures were produced by a total binder content of 500 kg/m³ for determining the effects of MK and GP on the mechanical properties. The design f_c was acquired from 70 to 100 MPa by using a low water-binder ratio of 0.2. The test results exhibit that high strength concrete can be obtained by replacing the cement with MK and GP. Besides, correlations between these results are executed for comprehending the relationship between mechanical properties of SFRHSC and the strong correlations are observed between these properties. Moreover, two models in the gene expression programming (GEP) for predicting the f_c of SFRHSC made with binary and ternary blends of MK and GP have been developed. The results obtained from these models are compared with the experimental results. These comparisons proved that the results of equations obtained from these models seem to agree with the experimental results.