International Concrete Abstracts Portal

An experimental investigation was conducted on the shear behavior of deep beams made with steel fiber reinforced high performance concrete (HPC). Twenty-six beam specimens with various shear span-effective depth ratios, steel fiber contents, amounts of vertical and horizontal web reinforcements were tested under static loads. In addition to the strength test, extensive instrumentations were designed for the measurements of average strains of reinforced concrete in the shear span and strains of web reinforcements. The web-shear cracking initiated as the first inclined shear crack. About 30% increase in the inclined shear strength and 25% increase in the ultimate shear strength can be achieved with addition of 1 .O% steel fiber for specimens having a/d= 1 .5. The strain of vertical web reinforcements became negative and the horizontal web reinforcements were stretched to yield state for specimens having a/d ratios approach 0.5. The measured load-deformation relationships of reinforced concrete and strains of web reinforcements were compared with the prediction of the softened truss model of steel fiber reinforced concrete proposed by other investigators. Good correlation was found from the comparisons.

One of the techniques proposed to improve the durability performance of concrete in aggressive environments is to use quality concrete. Much research has shown that cement composition also has a significant effect on concrete durability in sulfate-bearing soils/groundwaters and in chloride-corrosive situations. High C 3A cements have been found to be superior in terms of protection against corrosion of reinforcement, although they have a lower sulfate-resistance performance. In many situations, such as marine and Sabkha environments, chlorides and sulfates occur concomitantly and operate against concrete durability simultaneously. This study has been carried out to evaluate the sulfate resistance and chloride penetration performance of high-strength concrete. Two high-strength concrete mixes in the range of 60 to 75 MPa were designed first by using a superplasticized concrete of 0.36 water-cement ratio (w/c) and second by replacing 10 percent cement by silica fume. The control for comparison is a 25 Mpa concrete made with a 0.58 w/c. Type I portland cement has been used to provide higher chloride-binding capacity and, hence, better corrosion protection. A mixed sodium and magnesium sulfate environment has been used to evaluate sulfate resistance. High-strength concrete made with silica fume blending showed the best sulfate resistance in a sodium sulfate environment and the worst performance in a magnesium sulfate environment. Also, the normal 0.58 w/c ratio of 300 kg/m 3 cement content mix showed 1.5 times better performance than the 0.36 w/c ratio 450 kg/m 3 cement factor mix in magnesium sulfate environment. High-strength concrete showed three to four times better performance against chloride penetration compared to normal strength concrete. Use of 10 percent silica fume further improved resistance against chloride penetration.

SP-149 The theme of this second ACI International Conference was high-performance concrete. The conference proceedings title "High-Performance Concrete" contains 45 papers presented at this program. Whether you are currently involved with or are considering the use of high-performance concrete, this special symposium document is a must for you. Use the valuable information found in the above titles as well as the other listed in this special document.

In recent years, moment-resisting frames built using high-strength concrete have been used for high-rise buildings, primarily for economic reasons. When such high-rise buildings are subjected to severe earthquakes, cyclic horizontal and axial loading can be imposed on the exterior columns. The ductile behavior of such columns needs to be insured. In this study, improvement of the flexural ductility of high-strength concrete columns under high axial compressive load is attempted by arranging longitudinal bars with mixed steel grades. The basic concept of this method is to achieve the gradual attainment of yield of longitudinal bars, from low- to high-strength steel, as the column deflection increases, and thus to delay the column reaching the maximum moment capacity until the column deflection attains the required level. To verify the adequacy of the preceding design concept, six cantilever columns with 400-mm-square cross section have been constructed and tested under simulated severe seismic lateral loading with axial compressive load of either 0.3 f' c or 0.6 f' cA g. The compressive strength of concrete f' c was 65.7 MPa on average, and steels with yield strengths of 442 and 1033 MPa were used for longitudinal reinforcing bars. The adequacy of the preceding design concept was verified from the test results, and it was found that the New Zealand concrete design code could provide a good guideline for its application to design.

Ductility of high-strength concrete columns is very important in the aseismic design. There are many factors affecting the ductility of compression-bending members. The axial load ratio and volume stirrups ratio are main factors. Based on the experimental research of reinforced concrete columns with high-strength and normal strength concretes under monotonic and cyclic loading, it can be observed that under different axial load ratio and stirrup volume ratio the damage pattern of members is different, and there is also obvious difference in the ductility. To control ductility of members, we must control the damage pattern. If the axial load ratio is high, the shear-compressive damage of the column should be avoided to provide the required ductility. On the basis of experiments, the mechanism of the effect of axial load ratio on the ductility of column is also discussed. The axial load ratio limits are proposed under the condition of limited ductility. The experiments show that the relationship between stirrup ratio and axial load ratio is not linear if the axial load ratio is high, which is different from previous research. In the design, a simplified bilinear relationship can be adopted that agrees well with the experimental results.