Author : Kumar Shantveerayya and MD. Ihtesham Hussain

The concrete pavements in India are subjected to repetitive axle loads of commercial vehicles ranging from 20kN to as high as 200kN. This continuous repetitive axle loads causes various flexural and fatigue damages. The performance of a pavement or overlay depends on the engineering properties of the materials used in construction. The use of fiber reinforcement is grabbing more attention in concrete pavements. The concept of fiber reinforcement is as old as the use of brittle materials such as clay bricks or concrete. Concrete fiber composites technology has grown over last three decades in to a mature industry. Since the pioneering research on steel fiber reinforced concrete conducted in United States in 1960’s there has been substantial research and development throughout the world. Thereafter, various sorts of fiber materials have been investigated ever since and are utilized for different applications. An extensive experimental investigation is done in aim of studying the structural behavior of slabs resting on the ground which is made up of using steel fiber reinforced concrete (SFRC) is presented in this paper. Several slabs reinforced with different volume fractions (0-1%) of steel fibers are tested under a point load at the center of slab and cyclic load test is done. Our experimental result show that steel fibers significantly enhances the load carrying capacity under fatigue loadings up to an endurance limit of 1, 00,000 load cycles.

Keywords: Fatigue; pavement; reinforced concrete; slabs on ground and steel fibers

Article published in International Journal of Current Engineering and Technology, Vol.6, No.3 (June-2016)