DURABILITY AND MECHANICAL PROPERTIES AT LOW-TEMPERATURES OF STEEL-FIBER REINFORCED CONCRETE

摘要

This paper presents a brief summary of the main results obtained in a research program aimed at studying the influence of the Canadian climate on steel-fiber-reinforced-concrete (SFRC). The project was divided into five parts (air-entrainment, deicer salt scaling resistance, influence of corrosion, chloride ion penetration, and mechanical properties at low temperatures). Various SFRC mixtures were investigated. The results show that it is possible to obtain an adequate and stable air-void network in all types of mixtures evaluated. The scaling resistance was not observed to be influenced directly by the presence of the fibers. The corrosion tests did not allow to draw any conclusion on the influence of corrosion on the mechanical properties of normal and high-strength mixtures because in many cases the preloading (based on energy considerations) did not yield a sufficient crack opening. The analysis of the chloride ion penetration tests results show that the influence of fibers varies, depending upon the quality of the matrix. Finally, it was observed that low temperatures generally do not affect adversely the flexural behavior of SFRC. However, for a few mixtures, sudden fiber failure was observed.