Rheological and mechanical properties of self-compacting concrete with glass and polyvinyl alcohol fibres

The objective of this experimental work was to study the effect of glass and polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) fibres on fresh and hardened properties of SCC. For this purpose seven mixes; SCC, SCC with 0.1%, 0.2% and 0.3% of glass and PVA fibres by volume of SCC were prepared with a water-powder ratio of 0.35. Fresh properties were assessed using Slump flow, T500 time, L-box and V-funnel tests. Hardened properties assessed for all the four mixes were compressive strength, flexural strength, splitting tensile strength, modulus of elasticity and ultrasonic pulse velocity. Experiments revealed that after the addition of fibres workability properties (i.e. flow-ability, passing ability and resistance to segregation) were reduced slightly. Hardened properties were improved after the addition of fibres and this improvement was observed to be more in SCC mixtures with glass fibres.