A two-phase material approach to model steel fibre reinforced self-compacting concrete in panels

This work presents an experimental and numerical approach to ascertain the mechanical behaviour of steel fibre reinforced self-compacting concrete in laminar structures. Four-point flexural tests were performed on prismatic specimens extracted from a SFRSCC panel; the specimens’ behaviour was then modelled under the FEM framework. SFRSCC is assumed as a two-phase material, i.e. plain concrete and discrete steel fibres. The nonlinear material behaviour of the plain matrix was simulated using 3D smeared crack model, while the fibre reinforcement mechanisms were modelled using micro-mechanical behaviour laws determined from experimental fibre pull-out tests. The good performance of the developed numerical strategy was demonstrated.