Structural use of fiber-reinforced self-compacting concrete with recycled aggregates: Case study of a foundation wall in Spain

This paper is focused on the use of mixed recycled-aggregates (RA), replacing 100% of the natural coarse aggregates, for producing steel fiber reinforced self-compacting concrete (FR-SCC-RA) oriented to the construction of foundation walls. To this end, an extensive experimental program dedicated to the mechanical characterization of FR-SCC-RA foundation walls from the material and structural level was carried out. The former was developed on both molded specimens and cores extracted from the in-situ constructed FR-SCC-RA walls in Barcelona, Spain. The results lead to confirm that the use of RA resulted satisfactorily from both the concrete manufacturing and the mechanical performance, since no affectations on the design mechanical variables (i.e., compressive and flexural tensile strengths) were detected. Likewise, the results derived from the full-scale test evidenced that the residual loads of the slabs tested were significantly higher than those calculated based on the test results of the prismatic core samples. The main outcome derived from the experimental research program is that FR-SCC-RA might be a suitable material for this structural typology and that the tested slabs presented a sufficient post-cracking residual capacity -due to the incorporation of structural fibers- for avoiding fragile failures. These conclusions could be extended to other countries where similar restrictive regulations and standards are present, regarding the use of RA and FRC for structural applications.