Experimental Investigation of Concrete with Silica Fume and Hybrid Aspect Ratio Steel Fibers

Abstract

Adding fibres to concrete greatly increases the toughness of the material. The use of fibres also alters the behaviour of the fibre matrix composite after it has cracked, thereby improving its toughness Secondary cementing materials like Reactive Powder can be used to partially replace cement because of pozzolanic nature. Materials like quartz powder best suites to sand due to its physical and chemical properties, fineness etc. Also these materials are known to increase durability, resistance to sulphate attack. Our main aim is study the materials Quartz powder, Silica Fume are best suitable for preparing durability of concrete for M40 Grade. In cement replaced by silica fume and quartz powder with various percentages like 10%, 15% and 20%. And additional strength purpose using crimped steel fibres and banana fibre with various percentages like 0%, 0.5%, 1%, and 1.5%. This study investigates mechanical properties like compressive strength, Split tensile strength, flexural strength and Durability properties like Acid attack test, Sulphate attack test and Alkalinity attack test and the comparative study of normal concrete and fibres concrete. Now a days, many investigations and experiments are currently going on to prepare a high strengthed and durable concrete by the addition of different types of materials. This research represents the influence of silica fume and steel fibers on normal concrete and will also help in achieving the outstanding results. Hence in this research, Experimental investigations and analysis of results were conducted to study the compressive and flexural behavior of composite concrete with varying percentage of such silica fume and steel fibers added to it. The concrete mix adopted were M40 with varying percentage of the silica fume ranging from 0%, 5%, 10%, 15% & 20% in the partial replacement of cement weight and stainless steel fibers of diameter and length 0.50 mm and 40 mm respectively with the aspect ratio 80 at various percentages ranging from 0%, 0.4%, 1.4%, 2.4% & 3.4% by weight of the concrete. On the analysis of the test results the normal concrete with silica fume and straight steel fibers has enhanced the performance of composite mixture as compared to the ordinary concrete with conventional silica fume and steel fibers which were easily available in the market. These sustainable improvements or modifications could be easily adopted in the regular constructions.