Numerical simulation of the distribution and orientation of steel fibres in the SCC Available to Purchase

Currently, steel-fibre-reinforced self-compacting concrete (SFRSCC) is widely used in infrastructure construction. The distribution and orientation of the fibres could directly determine the mechanical properties and behaviours of the SFRSCC component. This paper presents a new numerical simulation that can be used to calculate the distribution and orientation of the fibres in the SCC during the casting procedure. The casting procedure of the SFRSCC is investigated by using the computational fluid dynamics software CFX, based on the finite-volume method. The motion of the fibres can be simplified into translation and rotation, and the Matlab program simulates the procedure. To verify the method's accuracy, a casting procedure for a SFRSCC beam was simulated and the fibres’ density in three orthogonal planes was investigated. The calculation results show good agreement with the experimental results, and the method is effective in analysing the distribution and orientation of fibres in SCC. To further analyse the orientation of fibres, the angles between three axes and fibre projection in three different planes are discussed. The beam can be divided into six parts according to the variation of the angle between the X axis and the projection of fibres in the XY plane.