Flexural behaviour of reinforced concrete beams with silica fume and processed quarry fines

This paper studies the influence of silica fume and Processed Quarry Fines (PQF) on the flexural behaviour of the reinforced concrete beams by experimental as well as numerical studies. The study has been shown that the incorporation of PQF can significantly increase the stiffness and the flexural strength of reinforced HPC beams. Also, the ultimate strength of specimens prepared with the 10% silica fume and 100% PQF are higher compared to conventional reinforced concrete specimen. Numerical analysis is performed to find the ultimate strength of HPC beams to compare with experimental results. Nonlinear behaviour of steel reinforcing bars and plain concrete is simulated using appropriate constitutive models and experimental results. The results indicate that the ultimate strength, deformed shape and crack patterns of reinforced HPC beams obtained through the Finite Element Analysis (FEA) are confirming with the experimental results.