Mechanical behaviour of concrete with amorphous metallic and steel fibres

In this study, a number of fibre-reinforced concrete (FRC) cylinders, beams and dog-bone-shaped specimens were fabricated and tested under static loading conditions. The primary variables of the investigation were the fibre type (amorphous metallic fibres and steel fibres), water/cement (w/c) ratio (0·6 and 0·45) and fibre volume content (0–0·75%). With a lower w/c ratio, the compressive strength, elastic modulus, flexural strength and tensile strength increased, whereas the fracture energy decreased regardless of the fibre type or content. Compared with FRC with amorphous metallic fibres, FRC with hooked-end steel fibres exhibited much higher flexural toughness, residual strength and fracture energy, but showed lower compressive toughness and strain capacity. The volume content of amorphous metallic fibres had a pronounced effect on the flexural and tensile behaviours – higher fibre contents led to higher strength, deflection capacity, toughness and fracture energy because of the improvement of the fibre bridging capacity – whereas it had an insignificant influence on compressive strength and elastic modulus.