Abstract

The behavior of confined steel fiber-reinforced concrete (including confinement models) with compressive strengths ranging from normal to high strength is still rarely studied. This paper presents the results of an investigation of fifteen confined concrete cylinders containing steel fiber. The design parameters evaluated in the experiment included concrete compressive strength (covers normal to high strength), volume fraction of steel fiber and hoop spacing. The main objective of this study was to evaluate the behavior of confined steel fiber concrete by reviewing several design parameters, such as concrete strength (normal to high strength). It is then developed to be an analytical stress-strain expression for confined steel fiber concrete. The experimental program was carried out by making cylindrical specimens with a diameter of 100 mm and a height of 200 mm. The cylindrical test object is compressed in a monotonic uniaxial loading. Experimental results have shown steel fiber in concrete has an important role in increasing the compressive strength and strain of cylindrical concrete without steel fiber. In addition, the value of strength enhancement of confined concrete (K) along with increasing fiber fraction volume; which applies to normal to high-strength concrete. The value of K also increases if the compressive strength of the concrete tends to decrease and the spacing of the hoops is closer. The comparison of stress-strain behavior between the confined steel fiber concrete proposed by other researchers and the experimental results in general significantly different in post-peak response. The statistical analysis indicates that the value of Coefficient of Variation for the confinement model by Campione is the closest compared to other existing confinement models in predicting the values of K and Toughness Index. Furthermore, the analytic stress-strain expression of confined steel fiber concrete was developed by adopting and modifying several equations from the present models. The proposed analytical expression is then verified with the experimental results. The results of the verification show that the stress-strain behavior of confined steel fiber concrete is relatively close.