STRUCTURAL PROPERTIES OF STEEL FIBRE REINFORCED MORTAR

Abstract

The inclusion of fibre reinforcement in concrete, mortar and cement paste can enhance many of the engineering properties of the basic materials, such as fracture toughness, flexural strength and resistance to fatigue, impact, thermal shock or spalling. The role of randomly oriented, discrete, discontinuous fibres which are added to produce fibre reinforced composites, is to bridge across the crack that develop in the concrete. Amongst various fibres like steel, glass, carbon, asbestos; steel fibres are the most widely used in cement concrete. The present work is an experimental investigation of various structural properties steel fibre reinforced mortar viz, compressive strength, split tensile strength, modulus of elasticity, impact strength and flexural strength. For this purpose, three mixes were cast. For .each mix, corrugated Xerox type rectangular steel fibres were used in volume fractions of 1, 1.5 and 2 percent. Control specimens for the three mixes were also cast for comparison. Superplasticizer was used for the mixes containing fibres. Cubes, cylinders and beams of different mixes were cast to investigate the various properties of steel fibre reinforced mortar. It has been found that addition of corrugated steel fibres to the mortar improve its static and dynamic properties.;' The compressive strength of mortar increases considerably due to addition of fibres. However, the use of steel fibres in mortar in increasing the split tensile strength was found to be marginal. The flexural strength and impact strength of mortar increased considerably due to inclusion of the fibres.