Experimental behavior of mesh reinforced shotcrete and steel fiber reinforced shotcrete panels

摘要

The existent experimental data reveal that the steel fiber reinforcement improves the energyabsorption capacity, the fatigue and impact strength and the cracking behavior of the cementbased materials. These material benefits increase the structural ductility, safety anddurability.Apart from these material-structural enhancements, the applications made by the steel fiberreinforced shotcrete (SFRS), like the tunnel linings, have proven that SFRS can provide aviable technical, economical and practical alternative to conventional mesh reinforcedshotcrete. The loss of concrete and the construction time decrease when using SFRStechnology.In order to compare the behavior of the conventional mesh reinforced shotcrete and SFRS itis current to carry out experimental tests on panels of these materials. In this article, the testsperformed on panels of concrete reinforced with wire mesh and on panels reinforced withthree different percentages of hooked-ends steel fibers (25, 30 and 35 kg/m3 of fibers) arediscribed. All the panels were manufactured by shotcrete technology in the site plant of theAlqueva dam (Portugal). The main results are presented and analyzed.