Fatigue performance of plain and steel fibre reinforced self compacting concrete using S–N relationship

• Mean fatigue lives for SCC and SFRSCC are higher than CVC and CVFRC.
• Design fatigue lives for SCC and SFRSC are higher than CVC and CVFRC.
• S–N relationships were developed for fatigue life of SCC and SFRSCC.
• Fatigue strength/endurance limit for SCC and SFRSCC is better than CVC and CVFRC.

The paper presents the results of the study conducted to explore the fatigue performance of plain self compacting concrete (SCC) and steel fibre reinforced self compacting concrete (SFRSCC). Approximately 250 flexural fatigue tests and 195 complementary static flexural tests were executed on beam specimens of size 100 mm × 100 mm × 500 mm under four point flexural loading. The distribution of fatigue life of SCC and SFRSCC was examined at different stress levels, which is a prerequisite for estimating the mean and design fatigue lives. The flexural fatigue performance of SCC and SFRSCC containing three different fibre volume fractions was evaluated in terms of mean and design fatigue lives, and two-million cycles of fatigue strengths/endurance limits. The flexural fatigue performance of SCC as well as SFRSCC was found to be better than the conventionally vibrated concrete (CVC) and fibre reinforced concrete (CVFRC).