PERFORMANCE OF SIFCON IN TORSION

Abstract

SIFCON (Slurry infiltrated fibrous concrete) is one of the recently developed materials and may be considered as a special type of fibre concrete with high percentage (6 to 20) of fibre content. It may also be considered as preplaced fibre concrete through which the cement slurry or flowing mortar is infiltrated. At present very little is known about its behaviour. However, this material has exhibited a remarkable improvement in its performance under various mode of loading (viz compression, tension, flexure and shear) over that of SFRC. Beside this it has an excellent potential for application in various structures, specially in the areas where ductility is required. The aim of this investigation was to study the performance of SIFCON in torsion. In all 72 specimens 30 mm x 30 mm x 330 mm in size with fibre content varying from 4 to 12 7 were casted for aspect ratios 60, 75, 90 and 125. In order to compare the improvement in performance, the specimens of plain mortar as well as SFRC were also casted. All the specimens were tested in a torsion testing machine. The experimental results showed an increase of 105 % and 172 % in the ultimate torque capacity over plain mortar and 30 % and 72 % over that of SFRC, for fibres of aspect ratio 90 and 125 respectively. However for fibres with aspect ratio 60 and 75 only marginal improvement was observed. This study has further widened the scope of the structural application of this material in future.