Evaluate the effect of steel, polypropylene and recycled plastic fibers on concrete properties

The impacts of reinforcing concrete matrix with steel fibers, polypropylene fibers and recycled plastic fibers using different volume fractions of 0.15%, 0.5%, 1.5% and 2.5% on the compressive and tensile characteristics are experimentally investigated in the current research. Also, flexural behavior of plain concrete (PC) beams, shear performance of reinforced concrete (RC) beams and compressive characteristics of both PC and RC columns reinforced with recycled plastic fibers were studied. The experimental results showed that the steel fibers improved the splitting tensile strength of concrete higher than both the polypropylene fibers and recycled plastic fibers. The end-hooked steel fibers had a positive effect on the compressive strength of concrete while, the polypropylene fibers, the recycled plastic fibers and the rounded steel fibers had a negative impact. Compressive strength of end-hooked steel fiber specimen with volume fraction of 2.5% exhibited the highest value among all tested samples of 32.48 MPa, 21.83% higher than the control specimen. The ultimate load, stiffness, ductility and failure patterns of PC and RC beams in addition to PC and RC columns strengthened with recycled plastic fibers enhanced remarkably compared to non-strengthened elements. The maximum ultimate load and stiffness of RC column reinforced with recycled plastic fibers with 1.5% volume fraction improved by 21 and 15%, respectively compared to non-reinforced RC column.