Flexural behaviour of arch-type steel fibre reinforced cementitious composites

We investigated the flexural performance of arch-type steel fibre reinforced cementitious composites. We used arch-type steel fibres with a bend length of 1.5 mm and a radius of curvature of either 25 mm or 35 mm. The flexural performance of the two arch-type steel fibres with different radii of curvature was characterised in accordance with ASTM C1609, where the tensile strength of the steel fibre (i.e., 1100 or 1300 MPa) was also varied. With the 1100-MPa steel fibre reinforced cementitious composites, the composite with a radius of curvature of 35 mm exhibited higher flexural performance compared with the composite formed using the hooked-end-type fibres. The flexural tests of the 1300-MPa steel fibre reinforced cementitious composites formed using arch-type steel fibres with both radii of curvature revealed higher flexural performance compared with the composites formed using hooked-end type fibres. The flexural performance was characterised depending on volume fraction of fibres in accordance with EN 14652:2005 using the 1300-MPa arch-type steel fibres with a radius of curvature of 35 mm. The arch-type steel fibre reinforced cementitious composites exhibited higher flexural strength and higher residual flexural tensile strength than those formed using the hooked-end-type steel fibre reinforcements at all volume fractions.