Flexural fatigue design of steel fibre reinforced concrete pavements: a comparative study

Though various material models representing the fatigue response are available for steel fibre reinforced concrete (SFRC), the adequacy of these models for relevant applications such as pavements has not been well established. The objective of the present study is to incorporate generalised fatigue models (based on the various test and fibre parameters) in the available design methods for SFRC pavements and compare the design solutions with existing fatigue models. The study focuses on design methods such as Indian Road Congress – IRC SP 46:2013, modified American Concrete Pavement Association (ACPA) and mechanistic-empirical design method developed at IIT Madras (MEFRC). The design efficiency is considerably improved by the incorporation of generalised models. The MEFRC method with generalised fatigue models (GenFRC) seems to be most efficient in capturing the effect of fibres for both elastic and inelastic regimes of the slab behaviour.