Effect of medium coarse aggregate on fracture properties of ultra high strength concrete

Ultra high strength concrete (UHSC) originally proposed by Richards and Cheyrezy (1995) composed of cement, silica fume, quartz sand, quartz powder, steel fibers, superplasticizer etc. Later, other ingredients such as fly ash, GGBS, metakaoline, copper slag, fine aggregate of different sizes have been added to original UHSC. In the present investigation, the combined effect of coarse aggregate (6mm – 10mm) and steel fibers (0.50%, 1.0% and 1.5%) has been studied on UHSC mixes to evaluate mechanical and fracture properties. Compressive strength, split tensile strength and modulus of elasticity were determined for the three UHSC mixes. Size dependent fracture energy was evaluated by using RILEM work of fracture and size independent fracture energy was evaluated by using (i) RILEM work of fracture with tail correction to load – deflection plot (ii) boundary effect method. The constitutive relationship between the residual stress carrying capacity (σ) and the corresponding crack opening (w) has been constructed in an inverse manner based on the concept of a non-linear hinge from the load-crack mouth opening plots of notched three-point bend beams. It was found that (i) the size independent fracture energy obtained by using above two approaches yielded similar value and (ii) tensile stress increases with the increase of % of fibers. These two fracture properties will be very much useful for the analysis of cracked concrete structural components.