Recent advances in strain-hardening UHPC with synthetic fibers

Abstract

This paper summarizes recent advances in strain-hardening ultra-high-performance concretes (UHPC) with synthetic fibers, with emphasis on their tensile properties. The composites described here usually contain about 2.0% high-density polyethylene (PE) fibers. Compared to UHPC with steel fibers, strain-hardening UHPC with synthetic fibers generally show a higher tensile ductility, lower modulus in the cracked state, and relatively lower compressive strength. The tensile strain capacity of strain-hardening UHPC with synthetic fibers increases with increasing tensile strength. The f’c ft εt/w index (compressive strength × tensile strength × tensile strain capacity/tensile crack width) is used to compare the overall performance of strain-hardening UHPC. Moreover, a probabilistic approach is applied to model the crack width distributions of strain-hardening UHPC, and estimate the critical tensile strain in practical applications, given a specific crack width limit and cumulative probability. Recent development on strain-hardening UHPC with the use of seawater, sea-sand and PE fibers are also presented.