Flexural behaviour of arch-type steel fibre reinforced cementitious composites

Abstract We investigated the flexural performance of arch-type steel fibre reinforced cementitious composites. We used arch-type steel fibres with a bend length of 1.5 mm and a radius of curvature of either 25 mm or 35 mm. The flexural performance of the two arch-type steel fibres with different radii of curvature was characterised in accordance with ASTM C1609 , where the tensile strength of the steel fibre (i.e., 1100 or 1300 MPa) was also varied. With the 1100-MPa steel fibre reinforced cementitious composites, the composite with a radius of curvature of 35 mm exhibited higher flexural performance compared with the composite formed using the hooked-end-type fibres. The flexural tests of the 1300-MPa steel fibre reinforced cementitious composites formed using arch-type steel fibres with both radii of curvature revealed higher flexural performance compared with the composites formed using hooked-end type fibres. The flexural performance was characterised depending on volume fraction of fibres in accordance with EN 14652:2005 using the 1300-MPa arch-type steel fibres with a radius of curvature of 35 mm. The arch-type steel fibre reinforced cementitious composites exhibited higher flexural strength and higher residual flexural tensile strength than those formed using the hooked-end-type steel fibre reinforcements at all volume fractions.