It is known that cracking is a characteristic feature of brittle materials like concrete. A growing crack in plain concrete can very soon lead to failure. Reinforcing concrete with randomly distributed short fibers may improve the toughness of cementitious matrices by preventing or controlling the initiation, propagation, or coalescence of cracks. The service performance, operational life and the fracture behaviour of the structure depend on the applied stress level, the initial size of the flaw, material properties and the mechanisms by which the cracks propagate leading to fracture. One of the developments in modern engineering design is to adopt Fracture Mechanics (FM) based design. Although tensile toughness is an essential property for concrete, it has never been explicitly taken into account in design. This is due to the fact that its importance has not been understood and methods of taking it into account have been lacking. Today FM takes into account the influence of toughness on the tensile fracture behaviour. And also, the number of structural applications of Fiber Reinforced Concrete (FRC) has been limited. In order for FRC to be a viable material, it must be able to compete economically with existing reinforcing systems. Continued studies on this subject are necessary in order to increase the usage of FRC.

Full text: IJEIR_1070_Final.pdf