Construction and Building Materials 281 (2021) 122586

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Construction and Building Materials

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/conbuildmat

Effect of polyethylene fiber content on workability and

mechanical-anisotropic properties of 3D printed ultra-high ductile
concrete
Junhong Ye a, Can Cui a, Jiangtao Yu a,b,⇑, Kequan Yu c, Fangyuan Dong a
a
Department of Disaster Mitigation for Structures, Tongji University, Shanghai, China
b
Key Laboratory of Performance Evolution and Control for Engineering Structures, Tongji University, China
c
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

h i g h l i g h t s

A novel printable ultra-high ductile concrete was developed for 3DCP.

The workability of the UHDC with different fiber contents was comprehensively studied.

Mechanical tests in different directions were conducted to explore the mechanical anisotropy of the UHDC.

UHDC-1.5% showed better performance in both workability and mechanical property.

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Due to easy operation, quick construction and light weight, 3D concrete printing (3DCP) is expected as
Received 27 October 2020 one of the potential solutions for future construction. This study is aimed to develop ultra-high ductile
Received in revised form 17 January 2021 concrete (UHDC) with appropriate workability and use it as raw material for 3DCP. A series of experi-
Accepted 29 January 2021
ments were carried out to study the effect of fiber content (1.0%, 1.5% and 2.0% by volume fraction) on
Available online 19 February 2021
workability and mechanical-anisotropic properties of the UHDC. Flowability and buildability tests results
indicate that all the UHDC show acceptable workability in 3D printing. In uniaxial tensile test, the printed
Keywords:
UHDC with higher fiber content exhibits slightly reduced tensile strength and strain capacity compared
Ultra-high ductile concrete
3D concrete printing
with the mold-cast ones except for UHDC with fiber content 1.0%. The results of compressive and flexural
Fiber content tests indicate the significant mechanical-anisotropic behaviors in failure patterns, compressive strength
Mechanical anisotropy and flexural energy dissipation of the printed UHDC specimens. Comprehensively, the printed UHDC with
fiber content 1.5% shows better performance in both workability and mechanical property, and at mean-
time possesses reduced material cost. Finally, two indexes were used to quantitatively evaluate the
mechanical influence brought by printing process as well as mechanical anisotropy.
Ó 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction The concept of free-form construction, an early rudiment of

Heavy labor requirement, high formwork cost and weak envi-
ronmental sustainability are the key factors hindering the develop-
ment of construction industry [1]. As a possible solution, 3D
concrete printing (3DCP) technology has been gaining more and
more attentions by civil engineers and researchers characterizing
by its low labor demand, non-formwork and material saving in
complex construction.
⇑ Corresponding author at: Department of Disaster Mitigation for Structures,
Tongji University, Shanghai, China.
E-mail address: yujiangtao@tongji.edu.cn (J. Yu).
3DCP, was firstly proposed by Josepgh [2] in 1997. Until 2003,
the practical 3D printing of concrete was realized by Khoshnevis
using a novel method named contouring crafting [3,4], which indi-
cates that the contour of objective structure is crafted using a
specially-designed robot with concrete materials. Since then, this
technology was enhanced by researchers from both printing equip-
ment and material aspects [5-7], and finally developed into the
well-known extrusion-based concrete printing [8]. Due to its easy
operation, quick construction and compatibility to the construction
of light weight structures [9], extrusion-based concrete printing is
now the most popular method used by engineers and researchers.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2021.122586
0950-0618/Ó 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
J. Ye, C. Cui, J. Yu et al.
Concrete materials suitable for 3DCP must be reasonably
designed to meet requirements on fresh property, such pumpabil-
ity, extrudability and buildability [10,11]. Nematollahi et al. [12]
demonstrated the mixture design and performance characteriza-
tion of 3D-printable ultra-high performance concrete (UHPC). Le
et al [13,14] investigated the mix design, fresh and hardened prop-
erties of high-performance printing concrete reinforced by propy-
lene (PP) fiber. Nematollahi et al. [15] reported the effect of
propylene (PP) fiber content on the properties of 3D-printable
geopolymer mortars. Xiao et al. [16,17] recently developed 3D-
printable concrete with recycle sand and conducted a series of
tests to investigate its mechanical behaviors at early age and hard-
ened state.
However, due to concrete’s inherent drawback in tensile prop-
erty, the current 3D concrete printing technology remains at the
stage of printing concrete contour as formwork. Steel reinforce-
ment and normal concrete are still necessary to be used to fill
the printed formwork to satisfy the desired structural safety [20],
as illustrated in Fig. 1. On the other hand, researchers tried to
use steel microcable [18] and even printed steel reinforcement
[19] to overcome the brittleness of printed concrete. But it is diffi-
cult to apply the steel microcable or printed steel reinforcement
into practical 3D printing. These extra processes, to some extent,
defeat the advantages brought by 3DCP, as shown in Fig. 1. In
recent years, ultra-high ductile concrete (UHDC), a member in
the family of engineered cementitious composites (ECC), was
developed for its superior tensile strain capacity [20–32]. Incorpo-
rated with short-cut polyethylene (PE) fibers, the tensile strength
and strain capacity of UHDC range from 4 MPa to 15 MPa, and
6% to 12%, respectively. Thus, UHDC was expected to be a suitable
material for the printing of hollow structures without steel rein-
forcement [20], and at meantime retaining the easy construction
and lightweight advantages of 3DCP. However, the utilization of
PE fibers (generally 2% by volume fraction) leads to a high materi-
als cost, which is several times higher than that of normal concrete
[27]. Therefore, it is valuable to develop 3D-printable UHDC with
reduced fiber content.
Fig. 1. Key issues hindering the development of 3DCP and corresponding solution.
2
Construction and Building Materials 281 (2021) 122586
Moreover, the layer-by-layer stacking process in 3DCP may lead
to weak interfaces and inevitable voids between adjacent layers
(Fig. 1), which at last reflect as anisotropy. The current studies
mainly focused on the hardened properties of printed concrete,
such as compressive, tensile, flexural, shear and interlayer bond
behaviors [12,14,15,33–35]. Only very few studies were conducted
to investigate the mechanical-anisotropic behavior of printed con-
crete [17,36–38]. Ma et al. [36] reported the mechanical anisotropy
of basalt fiber reinforced composite for 3D printing and observed
significant anisotropic behavior in compressive, tensile, flexural
and shear tests. Similar conclusions were also obtained on the
hardened properties of 3D printed concrete with recycle sand by
Xiao et al. [17]. Nevertheless, limited investigators succeeded in
developing 3D-printable ECC-like materials and exploring the
mechanical anisotropy [11].
With all above points in mind, the authors aimed to develop a
novel UHDC with reduced fiber contents for 3DCP. A systematic
study on workability and mechanical-anisotropic properties of
the UHDC was conducted, as depicted in Fig. 1. Before printing,
flowability and buildability tests were conducted to evaluate the
workability of fresh-mixed UHDC. After printing, a series of
uniaxial tensile tests, compressive tests and flexural tests were
conducted on mold-cast and printed UHDC. The mechanical-
anisotropic behaviors of the printed UHDC were measured by
loading in different directions. Meanwhile, micro-structure
analysis was also conducted to observe the fiber alignment for
explanations.
2. Materials and experimental programs
2.1. Materials and mix proportion
Table 1 lists the mix proportion of the 3D-printable UHDC used
in this study, which was developed based on one kind of UHDC in
previous study [20]. Binding materials including PII. 525 ordinary
Portland cement (OPC), Class F fly ash (FA), silica fume (SF) and
J. Ye, C. Cui, J. Yu et al.
Table 1
Mix proportion of 3D-printable UHDC (unit: kg/m3).
Cement Fly ash Silica sand
656 118 604
crumb rubber (CR) with size of 120 mesh were used in the prepa-
ration of UHDC. The crumb rubber herein was used to modify the
matrix strength and achieve more ductile UHDC [25]. Silica sand
with average grain size of 0.11 mm was selected as the fine aggre-
gate. The particle distributions of cement, silica sand, silica fume
and crumb rubber are plotted in Fig. 2. To reinforce the matrix
and obtain high ductility, short-cut polyethylene (PE) fiber with
aspect ratio of 480 was added by volume fraction in the mixture.
The geometric and mechanical properties of PE fiber provided by
manufacture are listed in Table 2. High-range water reducer
(HRWR) employed to make the mixture more flowable and ensure
the dispersion of PE fibers. Three fiber contents by volume fraction
including 1.0%, 1.5% and 2.0% were employed to investigate the
effect of fiber content on the workability and mechanical-
anisotropic properties of the UHDC, namely UHDC-1.0%, UHDC-
1.5% and UHDC-2.0%.
2.2. Mixing and printing process
A single vertical-axis forced mixer with 20 Liters capacity was
used in the mixing of UHDC. Fig. 3(a) illustrates the mixing process
of UHDC. Water was firstly added into the mixer. Then, dry ingre-
dients including OPC, FA, sand, SF, CR and HRWR were gradually
added into the mixer and mixed for 3 min at 140 rpm and 1 min
at 420 rpm. Subsequently, PE fibers were slowly added by hands
into the mixer, mixed at 140 rpm until the fibers were uniformly
dispersed and then mixed at 420 rpm for 1 min. The fresh-mixed
UHDC was then poured into the paste container of 3D concrete
printer (Fig. 3(b)) and continued pre-mixing for the subsequent
printing.
A gantry-type 3D concrete printer developed by Tongji Univer-
sity was utilized to print UHDC, as shown in Fig. 3(c). To print con-
crete more effectively and avoid apparent voids (Fig. 1) among the
cross section brought by the using of circle printing nozzle, rectan-
gular nozzles with three different sizes were equipped in the
Fig. 2. Particle size distribution of ingredients [20].
Construction and Building Materials 281 (2021) 122586
Silica fume Crumb rubber HRWR PE fiber Water/binder
246 57 3 10/15/20 0.27
extruding system, including 13  30 mm for the printing of tensile
specimens, 10  50 mm and 10  100 mm for the printing of com-
pressive and flexural specimens. It should be noted that the nozzle
size only determines the dimension of printed UHDC, which actu-
ally has little influence on UHDC’s mechanical properties [39].
Before printing, the information of printed sample was transmitted
to Computer Numerical Control (CNC) codes and imported into the
computer, which controls the moving and extrusion of the extrud-
ing system (Fig. 3(b)). Then the whole printing process was auto-
matically operated by the computer. In this study, the extruding
and moving speed of extruding system were controlled uniformly
as 10 mm/s and 1 L/min, respectively.
2.3. Testing procedure for workability
The workability tests for 3D-printable UHDC with different fiber
contents were conducted from two aspects: flowability and build-
ability. A common method, jumping table test [40], was employed
for the measurement of flowability due to its easy operation and
immediate result. Detailed information about the testing proce-
dure can be found in Ref. [10]. Moreover, consistency test as rec-
ommended by JGJ/T70-2009 [41] was conducted to measure the
flowability and shape-retention ability of fresh-mixed UHDC,
which were important factors influencing the buildability of UHDC
in printing process. Detailed testing procedure was also described
in JGJ/T70-2009 [41]. Two physical parameters including spread
diameter from jumping table test and penetration depth from con-
sistency test were obtained to quantitatively evaluate the flowabil-
ity of fresh-mixed UHDC with different fiber contents.
For the measurement of buildability, a 10-layer structure was
printed using the rectangular printing nozzle with dimension of
10  100 mm. Thus, the designed cross section of each layer was
10 mm in height (hd) and 100 mm in width (wd). In the printing
process, the real height (hp) and width (wp) of each printed layer
were recorded using steel ruler and compared with the designed
ones. Then, relative deviation in height (dh) and width (dw) was cal-
culated by Eqs. (1) and (2), respectively.




hd  hp

dh ¼  100% ð1Þ
hd




wd  wp

dw ¼  100% ð2Þ
wd
2.4. Testing procedure for mechanical-anisotropic properties
To investigated the mechanical-anisotropic property of printed
UHDC, uniaxial tensile test, compressive test and flexural test were
conducted on an MTS CMT4204 electro-servo machine with the
capacity of 300 kN. Additionally, mold-cast (i.e., monolithically
cast) specimens were also fabricated as a comparison for each test.
All the specimens were cured in the air for 28d before testing.
Dogbone-shaped specimen was employed in the uniaxial tensile
test as suggested by Japan Society of Civil Engineers [42]. The
dimension of dogbone-shaped specimen is illustrated in Fig. 4(a).
To address the difficulty in cutting the printed specimen into
expected shape, the dogbone-shaped specimen was fabricated by
two parts, as shown in Fig. 4 (a). Using printing nozzle with size
3
J. Ye, C. Cui, J. Yu et al.
Table 2
Geometrical and mechanical properties of PE fiber [20].
Fiber Length (mm) Diameter (lm) Aspect ratio
PE 12 25 480
Fig. 3. Mixing and printing procedure of UHDC. (a) Mixing process; (b) Extruding system of the printer; (c) Gantry-type 3D concrete printer.
Fig. 4. (a) Fabrication of dogbone-shaped specimen (unit: mm); (b) test set-up.
of 13  30 mm, a layer of UHDC (13 mm in height) was firstly
printed as the core tensile region (see the blue region in Fig. 4
(a)), and then the other regions were cast right after printing (see
the shaded area in Fig. 4 (a)).
It should be noted that tensile bearing capacity of dogbone-
shape specimen is mainly contributed by the printed region. The
hand-cast regions have no influence on the result of tensile test.
The test set-up for uniaxial tensile test is illustrated in Fig. 4 (b).
To measure the displacement of specimen, two linear variable dis-
placement transducers (LVDTs) were fixed on the steel frames,
which were clamped on the two sides of specimen. The gauge
length of the LVDTs was 80 mm.
Considering mechanical anisotropy in compression, different
schemes were adopted to print UHDC specimens with various dimen-
Construction and Building Materials 281 (2021) 122586
Rupture elongation (%) Modulus (GPa) Tensile strength (GPa) Density (g/cm3)
2.4% 116 2.9 0.97
sional sizes. The coordinate herein was defined referring to the mov-
ing of printing nozzle (Fig 3(c) and Fig. 5(a)). The X and Y axes were
defined parallel and perpendicular to the printing direction of a single
filament, respectively. The plane made by X and Y axes was parallel to
that of working platform. The Z axis was parallel to the vertical mov-
ing of the printing nozzle and perpendicular to X-Y plane, i.e., the
direction of height of the printed samples.
The printing and cutting diagrams for compressive specimens
are presented in Fig. 5. Before testing, the printed UHDC samples
were sawed and polished into 50  50  100 prism according to
the cutting diagram, as seen in Fig. 5(a). The displacement of spec-
imens was measured at gauge length of 80 mm, and the fixation of
LVDTs was similar to that in the uniaxial tensile tests. The test set-
up for compressive specimens is illustrated Fig. 5(c).
To explore the mechanical anisotropy in flexural property,
printed UHDC samples were cut into 50  50  200 beams.
Three-point loading test was employed and the span was
150 mm as recommended by GB/T 50081–2002 [43]. Detailed
printing and cutting diagrams are depicted in Fig. 6. Loading in X di-
rection is apparently irrational because the tensile stress is perpen-
dicular to the layer interface [36], therefore, only loading in Y and Z
directions were employed in the test. A LVDT was fixed on the sur-
face of printed specimen to measure the displacement at mid span,
as shown in Fig. 6. Moreover, digital image correlation (DIC) tech-
nology [26] was employed to obtain full displacement field the on
the surface of specimen and visually observe the crack pattern dur-
ing the tests.
The specimen was named according to its loading direction. For
instance, C-Z refers to the compressive specimen loading in Z
direction, F-Y refers to the flexural specimen loading in Y direction.
The loading rate of tensile, compressive and flexural tests was con-
trolled uniformly as 2 mm/min. The strain rate was 4.444  10-4
s1 for three-point bending test and 4.167  10-4 s1 for tensile
and compressive test. At least four specimens were tested for each
test.
4
J. Ye, C. Cui, J. Yu et al. Construction and Building Materials 281 (2021) 122586

Fig. 5. (a) Printing and cutting diagrams for compressive specimens (unit: mm); (b) mold-cast specimen; (c) test set-up.

Fig. 6. (a–b) Printing and Cutting diagram for flexural specimens (unit: mm); (c) mold-cast specimen.

3. Results and discussion

3.1. Evaluation of workability

The results of spread diameter and penetration depth of UHDC

with different fiber contents are plotted in Fig. 7. It is clear that
both spread diameter and penetration depth decreased with the
increase of fiber content, exhibiting poorer flowability. The spread
diameter of UHDC-2.0% measured 144 mm, showing obvious
decrease of 11.1% and 14.8% as compared to that of UHDC-1.5%
and UHDC-1.0%, respectively. Similarly, the penetration depth of
UHDC-2.0% was as high as 76 mm compared to 80 mm for
UHDC-1.5% and 86 mm for UHDC-1.0%, showing reductions of
5.0% and 11.6%, respectively. Nevertheless, the reduction in flowa-
bility, in fact, is not a negative effect for the 3D printing of concrete
materials, where high thixotropy and buildability are simultane-
ously required.
Fig. 8 presents the printing process UHDC and a 20-layer
printed sample. It should be noted that the bottom layer of the
Fig. 7. Results of flowability tests.

5
J. Ye, C. Cui, J. Yu et al. Construction and Building Materials 281 (2021) 122586

3.2. Tensile property

Figs. 9(a ~ c) compare the tensile stress–strain curves of mold-

Fig. 8. (a) Printing process and (b) a 20-layer printed sample.
printed sample was compressed and deformed considerably due to
the excessive self-weight of upper layers, resulting in obvious devi-
ation in height. Thus, only 10 ~ 11 layers of UHDC were printed at a
time in the preparation of specimens for buildability and mechan-
ical tests. The results of buildability comparison between UHDC
with different fiber contents are summarized in Table 3. All UHDC
exhibited stable performance in height, attributing to the fixed
rising-height of the printing nozzle. The total height of the 10-
layer printed sample measured 99 mm, 98 mm and 97 mm for
UHDC-2.0%, UHDC-1.5% and UHDC-1.0%, respectively, and the cor-
responding deviation dh was at most 2%. As for the printing width,
the corresponding deviation dw was no more than 6%, slightly
higher than maximal deviation in height. Generally, it is concluded
that both UHDC-1.0%, UHDC-1.5% and UHDC-2.0% performed well
in buildability and exhibited superior shape-retention ability when
printing 10 layers at a time. The current study is aimed to prelim-
inary explore the mechanical property of printed UHDC with dif-
ferent fiber contents, thus only 10 ~ 11 layers were printed once
for the mechanical tests. For the printing of larger samples, time
intervals between every 10 layers were recommended, which are
beneficial to the initial hardening of the already printed layers
and make them firm enough to bear the self-weight of upper
layers.
cast and 3D printed UHDC with different fiber contents. Different
levels of strain-hardening characteristics were observed on both
mold-cast and printed dogbone-shaped specimens. Except for
UHDC-1.0%, it is clear that the tensile stress–strain curves of
printed UHDC-1.5% and UHDC-2.0% was lower and shorter than
those of mold-cast ones, indicating reduced tensile strength and
strain capacities due to the printing process. Moreover, by manu-
ally counting the crack number Nc after tensile tests, the average
 
crack width wc can be calculated using wc ¼ etu Lg =N c , where etu
and Lg refer to the ultimate tensile strain and gauge length of each
dogbone-shaped specimen, respectively. The crack distributions

together with the average crack width wc of all specimens are pre-
sented in Fig. 9(d). For these specimens fabricated using the same
method (mold-cast or 3D printed), the number of the triggered
cracks was generally decreased with the decrease of fiber content,
while the corresponding average crack width showed contrary ten-
dency. It is noted that multiple fine-cracks were uniformly trig-
gered over whole gauge length of mold-cast UHDC-2.0%, and the

corresponding wc measured 0.129 mm. While after printing, unsat-
urated and fewer cracks with larger width (measured 0.196 mm)
were observed on UHDC-2.0%. Similar tendency was also observed
between mold-cast and 3D printed specimens of UHDC-1.0% and
UHDC-1.5%. The increases in crack width of UHDC-1.0%, UHDC-
1.5% and UHDC-2.0% after printing were 19.4%, 5.1% and 51.9%,
respectively.
Four indexes evaluating the tensile properties of UHDC are
summarized in Figs. 10, i.e., tensile strength, tensile strain capacity,
strain energy and crack number. The strain energy herein was cal-
culated using the area underneath the tensile stress–strain curve
before ultimate state (80% of peak load in post-load branch). It is
of interest that the printing process leaded to significant reduction
in the tensile properties of printed UHDC with higher fiber con-
tents. Obviously, the reduction in tensile properties of printed
UHDC-1.5% was apparently lessened compared with those of
UHDC-2.0%. Moreover, when the fiber content was reduced to
1.0%, the tensile strain capacity and strain energy of printed
UHDC-1.0% were even higher than the those of mold-cast ones.
This phenomenon indicates that the reduction in fiber content
could mitigate the negative influence from extruding processing.
Although the average crack number of printed UHDC-1.5% is smal-
ler than that of UHDC-2.0%, it still exhibited slightly enhanced ten-
sile capacity, measured as 7.54%. This is due to the bigger crack
width in printed UHDC-1.5% specimens. Moreover, it is noteworthy
that the printed UHDC-1.5% also outperformed other printed UHDC
in both tensile strength and energy dissipation capacity. It is also

Table 3
Results of buildability comparison between UHDC with different fiber contents.

Fiber content No. Physical parameter Layer

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
1.0% Height (mm) 9 21 33 43 52 62 71 80 91 99
dh 1% 2% 2% 0% 1% 0% 1% 1% 1% 2%
Width (mm) 99 102 103 104 103 105 105 105 104 103
dw 1% 2% 3% 4% 3% 5% 5% 5% 4% 3%
1.5% Height (mm) 9 20 30 39 49 59 69 78 88 98
dh 1% 1% 0% 1% 0% 0% 0% 1% 0% 0%
Width (mm) 99 100 106 105 106 104 105 105 102 102
dw 1% 0% 6% 5% 6% 4% 5% 5% 2% 2%
2.0% Height (mm) 9 19 28 39 48 57 68 78 87 97
dh 1% 0% 1% 1% 1% 1% 1% 0% 1% 0%
Width (mm) 99 100 104 102 100 103 104 104 106 104
dw 1% 0% 4% 2% 0% 3% 4% 4% 6% 4%

6
J. Ye, C. Cui, J. Yu et al.
Fig. 9. (a–c) Tensile stress–strain curves and (d) crack distribution of mold-cast UHDC and printed UHDC.
noted that too smaller fiber dosage may lead to excessive loss in
tensile strength and strain capacities.
3.3. Micro-structure analysis
After tensile tests, the mold-cast and printed specimens were
pulled in half. With no external interference, the fracture surface
of specimen was put under a stereomicroscope to observe its fiber
alignment. Figs. 11 show the microscopic pictures of fracture sur-
face of mold-cast and printed UHDC with different fiber content.
By comparing Fig. 11(a) and (b), uniform fiber distribution was
observed on mold-cast and printed UHDC-1.0%. On the contrary,
it is clearly shown that the fiber on the fracture surface of printed
UHDC-1.5% were slightly twisted together but that on the fracture
surface of mold-cast one showed much more uniform alignment,
as shown in Figs. 11(c) and (d). As a result, the tensile strength
and strain capacity of printed UHDC-1.5% were reduced. The twist-
ing of fibers was mainly caused by the extruding process during
printing, where the fresh paste was compulsively extruded out
by the rotation of a screw pump (Fig. 3(b)). Similar phenomenon
was also observed on the fracture surface of the mold-cast and
printed UHDC-2.0% when comparing Figs. 11 (e) and (f). Moreover,
it is noted that the fiber alignment of printed UHDC-2.0% was more
twisting than that of printed UHDC-1.5%, resulting in an even smal-
ler strain capacity than UHDC-1.5%.
Additionally, scanning electron microscope (SEM) was used to
observe the twisted fiber morphology of UHDC-2.0% at a more
microscopic scale. As shown in Fig. 12 (a), the twisting of fibers
7
Construction and Building Materials 281 (2021) 122586
was clear seen under SEM, which verified the correctness of afore-
mentioned results obtained by stereomicroscope. When the speci-
men was cracked under tension, the tensile loading was then
totally bore by the fiber bridging capacity, If the fibers were
twisted together, the stress cannot be straightly transmitted to
fibers, and thus the fibers may be buckled instead of pulled out
straightly, which can be seen from the SEM image in Fig. 12(b).
It is summarized that the extruding process may redistribute
fiber alignment inside fresh UHDC mortar. When fiber content
was comparatively small, i.e., UHDC-1.0%, the extruding process
may even lead to a more uniform fiber alignment. But for UHDC
with high fiber content, such as 1.5% or more, the forced extruding
process obviously disturbs the fiber alignment in the matrix. The
corresponding influence on the fiber alignment and tensile prop-
erty of this disturbance becomes more significant with the increase
of fiber content.
3.4. Compressive property
The typical failure pattern of mold-cast and printed UHDC with
different fiber contents and loading directions were plotted in
Fig. 13. Despite the variation in fiber content, all mold-cast speci-
mens showed diagonal crack patterns (plotted as orange lines in
Fig. 13) on the surface of prism specimens, which is the typical fail-
ure mode for UHDC under compression [27]. However, significant
different failure patterns, namely anisotropy, were observed on
the surface of printed specimens loading in different directions.
Due to the layer-by-layer stacking process of 3D printing, weak
J. Ye, C. Cui, J. Yu et al. Construction and Building Materials 281 (2021) 122586

Fig. 10. Relations between tensile properties and fiber content.

Fig. 11. Fiber alignment on the fracture surface of dogbone-shaped specimens under stereomicroscope. (a) mold-cast and (b) 3D printed UHDC-1.0%;(c) mold-cast UHDC-
1.5%; (d) 3D printed UHDC-1.5%; (e) mold-cast and (f) 3D printed UHDC-2.0%.

interface between adjacent layers inherently existed in the printed
sample. Thus, regardless of fiber content, the failure cracks (plotted
as yellow line in Fig. 13) of the printed specimens loading in X and
Y direction, which is parallel to the weak interface, were generally
occurred along the interface, but the specimens were not totally
separated into several thin layers due to the existed fiber bridging
between adjacent layers. When the loading direction was perpen-
dicular to the weak interface, i.e., Z direction, the diagonal cracks
coupled with few cracks parallel to the weak interface were
observed on UHDC specimens (plotted as white lines in Fig. 13).
Figs. 14 illustrates the average compressive stress–strain curves
of mold-cast and printed UHDC-1.0%, UHDC-1.5% and UHDC-2.0%.
All the UHDC specimens showed similar behavior in the ascending
branch. But for UHDC-1.0% specimens loading in X and Y direction,

8
J. Ye, C. Cui, J. Yu et al.
Fig. 12. SEM images of (a) twisted fibers and (b) buckled fiber.
Fig. 13. Typical failure pattern of compressive specimens.
abrupt drop (see Fig. 14(a)) was observed in stress–strain curves,
which was a mechanical reflection to the occurrence of aforemen-
tioned failure crack along the weak interface (see Fig. 13). It is
mainly due to the weak fiber bridging between adjacent layers.
With increasing fiber content, the fiber bridging capacity between
adjacent layers was simultaneously enhanced, and thus the abrupt
drop was no longer significant in the stress–strain curves of UHDC-
1.5% and UHDC-2.0% in X and Y directions. Moreover, it is noted
that the post-peak branches of printed specimens loading in Z
direction, i.e., C-Z, were mostly gentler than these of the others,
exhibiting better deformability. This enhancement is mainly attrib-
uted to the few cracks parallel to the weak interface (as illustrated
in Fig. 14), which delayed the loss of compressive bearing capacity.
In addition, Fig. 15(a) summarizes the relations between aver-
age compressive strength of printed UHDC loading in different
directions and fiber content. UHDC-1.5% showed highest compres-
sive strength 40.6 MPa among the mold-cast specimens, which are
consistent with the result obtained by Wang [27]. On the contrary,
the printed UHDC-1.5% specimens loading in Y direction showed
the lowest compressive strength 36.7 MPa among these loading
9
Construction and Building Materials 281 (2021) 122586
in the same direction. For printed specimens loading in Z direction,
the highest compressive strength came from UHDC-2.0%, mea-
sured 47.3 MPa, which was increased by 18.8% and 6.1% as com-
pared to that of UHDC-1.0% and UHDC-1.5%, respectively. For
printed UHDC loaded in Y direction, the highest compressive
strength came from UHDC-1.0% despite its lowest fiber content,
approximately 1.25 times higher than that of UHDC-1.5% and
UHDC-2.0%.
Moreover, the relations between average compressive strength
of UHDC with different fiber contents and loading direction are
illustrated in Fig 15(b). Significant anisotropy was observed on
the printed UHDC regardless of fiber content. Moreover, it is seen
that the compressive strength of printed UHDC-1.0% UHDC-1.5%
and UHDC-2.0% loading in X direction measured 53.4 MPa,
42.7 MPa and 43.6 MPa, which were 45.9%, 5.2% and 18.8% higher
than that of their corresponding mold-cast specimens, respec-
tively. Such significant enhancement was not observed in the
printed specimens loading in Y direction. The printed UHDC-1.5%
even showed lower compressive strength as compared with
mold-cast UHDC-1.5%. It is mainly due to the fact that the weak
interface could divide the C-X and C-Y specimens into several thin
slabs coupled by different levels of fiber bridging capacities, which
was beneficial to the compressive bearing capacity. Meanwhile, the
fiber alignment of C-X was parallel to the printing and also loading
direction, which further contributed to the enhancement in com-
pressive strength. But the fiber alignment of C-Y was vertical to
the printing and loading direction, which to some extent reduced
the compressive strength.
3.5. Flexural property
The typical failure patterns of mold-cast and printed UHDC
beams with different fiber contents were summarized in Fig. 16.
Mold-cast and printed UHDC-1.0% specimens showed single criti-
cal cracking mode coupled with few fine-cracks, indicating brittle-
ness in flexural test due to its poorest tensile strain capacity.
However, it is clear that printed UHDC-1.5% beams triggered the
most amount of fine-cracks than printed UHDC-1.0% and UHDC-
2.0% beams despite the loading directions. This phenomenon kept
well consistent with the obtained result in tensile tests that
printed UHDC-1.5% outperformed others in tensile strain capacity.
When comparing at the same fiber content, the printed UHDC-1.5%
beams also triggered much more cracks than the mold-cast one,
which could help a lot in the enhancement of flexural deformabil-
ity and energy dissipation. Moreover, zig-zag shaped cracks (see
Fig. 16) were observed on printed UHDC-1.5% and UHDC-2.0%
beams when the loading direction was perpendicular to weak
interface, i.e., Z direction, similar to the failure pattern of printed
compressive specimen (see Fig. 13).
J. Ye, C. Cui, J. Yu et al. Construction and Building Materials 281 (2021) 122586

Fig. 14. Average compressive stress–strain curves of mold-cast and printed UHDC.

Fig. 15. Relations between compressive strength and (a) fiber contents as well as (b) loading directions.

Figs. 17 plot the typical load–deflection curves of mold-cast and
printed UHDC with different fiber contents. For UHDC-1.0% beams,
no obvious enhancement deformability was observed in the
deformability after printing, while reverse tendency was observed
on printed UHDC-1.5% and UHDC-2.0% due to their higher tensile
strain capacity compared with UHDC-1.0%. Moreover, it should
be noted that printed UHDC-1.5% and UHDC-2.0% beams loading
in Z direction showed the best deformability when comparing at
the same fiber content. It is mainly due to the zig-zag critical crack
as well as the multiple fine-cracks (as seen in Fig. 16), which
absorbed the considerable energy and delayed the loss of flexural
bearing capacity.
Figs. 18 summarize the relations between flexural strength,
ultimate deflection, energy dissipation and loading directions.
The energy dissipation herein was calculated using the area under-
neath the load–deflection curves before ultimate state (80% of peak
load in post-load branch). It can be seen that insignificant aniso-
tropy was observed on the flexural strength of printed specimens
while considerable anisotropy was observed on deformability
characterized by ultimate deflection and energy dissipation. By
triggering much more fine-cracks, UHDC-1.5% beams outper-
formed the others in both flexural strength, deformability and
energy dissipation capacity. When loading direction was applied
in Z direction, the printed UHDC-1.5% and UHDC-2.0% beams
showed improved deformability reaching 6.6 mm and 5.1 mm as
compared to their mold-cast counterparts. The highest flexural
strength came from UHDC-1.5% beam loading in Y direction, mea-
sured 22.0 MPa, which was 24.5% and 52.8% higher than that of
printed UHDC-1.0% and UHDC-2.0% beams loading in Y direction,
respectively. Such significant enhancement in the flexural strength

10
J. Ye, C. Cui, J. Yu et al. Construction and Building Materials 281 (2021) 122586

Fig. 16. Typical failure pattern of compressive specimens.

Fig. 17. Typical load–deflection curves of mold-cast and printed UHDC.

resulted in even higher enhancement in the energy dissipation
capacity of UHDC-1.5% F-Y beam, which was 1.37 times and 3.48
times of that of the UHDC-1.5% F-MC and F-Z, respectively.
It is demonstrated in section 3.2 that the clusters of twisted
fibers impaired the tensile properties of printed UHDC, which
was in fact a single layer plate (10 mm in thickness). But reverse
tendency was observed in flexural performance of printed UHDC
as compared with monolithically cast counterparts. This could be
explained by the following reasons. Firstly, the printed beams were
composed of multiple-layer plates (10 mm thickness in single
layer). When loading was applied in Y direction, the interfaces
between adjacent layers prevent the propagation of transverse

11
J. Ye, C. Cui, J. Yu et al.
Fig. 18. Relations between (a) flexural strength, (b) ultimate deflections, (c) energy dissipation and loading directions.
critical crack across the whole width of printed specimen. Instead,
more tortuous critical cracks were formed, which can be seen from
the bottom side of failed specimen in Fig. 16. The special assembly
of multiple layers resembles the hierarchical structure of natural
material, such as nacre shell [44], which not only makes up for
the negative impacts brought by clusters of twisted fibers, but fur-
ther enhances the deformability and energy dissipation of printed
specimens loaded in Y direction. Secondly, it is known that natural
nacre is a typical hierarchical assembled material, possessing supe-
rior mechanical property despite its brittle constituent, i.e., 95%
aragonite. The sophisticated interlayer structures in nacre, such
as mineral bridges, nano-asperities, biopolymer and tablet inter-
locks [44], contribute a lot to the transmission of nacre from brit-
tleness to toughness. This is exactly similar to layer-by-layer
structure in 3D printed samples. When the printed specimens were
loaded in Z direction, the pre-existed flaws between adjacent lay-
ers can be considered as a simplified nacre-mimic interlayer-
structure, which could eliminate the stress concentration and
deflect the critical crack, resulting in zig-zag shaped critical crack
and enhanced deformability and energy dissipation capacity.
3.6. Evaluation of anisotropic behavior
To quantitatively evaluate the mechanical-anisotropic behavior
of printed concrete structures Ma et al. [36] proposed an empirical
parameter Ia using Eq. (3):
qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
Ia ¼
2 2
ðf X  f MC Þ þ ðf Y  f MC Þ þ ðf Z  f MC Þ =f MC
2
ð3Þ
where fMC refers to the mechanical property of the mold-cast spec-
imen, such as compressive strength, tensile strength and flexural
12
Construction and Building Materials 281 (2021) 122586
strength. The fX, and fY and fZ refer to the mechanical properties of
the printed specimens loading in different directions. However,
the authors hold the different standpoint that the anisotropy of
specimens should be compared on one category of specimen using
the same fabricating method. For instance, the anisotropic behavior
of mold-cast specimen should be evaluated using the mechanical
property of mold-cast specimens loading in different directions
instead of printed specimen. The Ia, in fact, is a parameter character-
izing the influence of printing process on the mechanical property
of printed concrete structure. Thus, the Eq. (3) was changed into
Eq. (4):
qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
2 2 2
IDireciotn ¼ ðf X  f Direciotn Þ þ ðf Y  f Direciotn Þ þ ðf Z  f Direciotn Þ =f Direciotn ð4Þ
The footnote ‘‘Direction” represents the loading direction. For
instance, when the loading direction is X, the fX herein refers to
the mechanical property of printed specimens subjected to X load-
ing direction and IX is the corresponding anisotropic parameter.
Meanwhile, the parameter Ia was renamed as I3D to evaluate influ-
ence of printing process on the mechanical property of printed
UHDC. The value of those parameters ranges from 0 to positive
infinity. The higher the parameter, the more significant influence
brought by printing process and mechanical anisotropy. When
those parameters are equal to 0, it means that the influence
brought by printing process can be ignored and as well as the
mechanical anisotropy.
The calculated value of different kinds of parameters is listed in
Table 4. It is noted that UHDC-1.5% and UHDC-2.0% showed small
I3D (lower than 0.30) in compressive strength and flexural strength
but great I3D (higher 1.00) in flexural energy dissipation capacity,
indicating conspicuous influence brought by printing process.
J. Ye, C. Cui, J. Yu et al. Construction and Building Materials 281 (2021) 122586

Table 4
Results of different kinds of anisotropic parameters.

Properties Mix. ID Parameters

I3D IX IY IZ
Compressive strength UHDC-1.0% 0.47 0.39 0.42 0.35
UHDC-1.5% 0.15 0.15 0.27 0.18
UHDC-2.0% 0.35 0.13 0.22 0.18
Flexural strength UHDC-1.0% 0.34 – 0.20 0.16
UHDC-1.5% 0.10 – 0.17 0.13
UHDC-2.0% 0.06 – 0.01 0.01
Flexural deformability UHDC-1.0% 0.33 – 0.29 0.41
UHDC-1.5% 0.74 – 0.02 0.02
UHDC-2.0% 1.35 – 0.11 0.13
Flexural energy dissipation UHDC-1.0% 0.59 – 0.03 0.03
UHDC-1.5% 2.91 – 0.27 0.37
UHDC-2.0% 1.47 – 0.53 0.35

The results of anisotropic parameters IX, IY and IZ showed that the
UHDC-2.0% exhibited weakest anisotropy in both compressive
strength and flexural strength, UHDC-1.5% exhibited weakest ani-
sotropy in flexural deformability. But the anisotropic parameters
of UHDC-1.5% and UHDC-2.0% in energy dissipation are generally
greater than UHDC-1.0% (measured 0.01), indicating significant
mechanical anisotropy. It should be noted that ultimate deflection
and energy dissipation capacity of printed UHDC were much
higher than the mold-cast, which in fact has no disadvantages on
the mechanical behaviors of printed UHDC.
Moreover, the significant mechanical-anisotropic behaviors in
printed UHDC are not necessarily a bad thing. For instance, wood,
the most widely-used natural materials in constructions, shows
typical mechanical anisotropy considering its unique grain. The
compressive strength of wood along the grain direction is signifi-
cant greater than that vertical to the grain direction, while totally
reverse tendency is exhibited in flexural strength. Therefore, wood
can be used universally as column and beam in timber structure.
Similarly, carefully considering anisotropy in mechanical property
of printed UHDC should be the key to make the best use of this
material in structures.
4. Conclusions
This study is aimed to investigate the effect of fiber content on
the workability and mechanical-anisotropic properties of the 3D-
printable UHDC. A series of workability tests, uniaxial tensile tests,
compressive tests and flexural tests in different directions were
conducted. The main conclusions are drawn as follows:
1) UHDC with fiber contents 1.0%, 1.5% and 2.0% all show favor-
able workability in 3D printing.
2) The tensile strength and strain capacity of printed UHDC-
1.5% and UHDC-2.0% are slightly lower than those of mold-
cast ones. But UHDC-1.0% shows slightly enhanced tensile
strain capacity compared with the mold-cast one.
3) The micro-structure analysis indicates that the printing pro-
cess could redistribute the fiber alignment inside fresh-
mixed UHDC. When the fiber content is increased to 1.5%
and 2.0%, more and more twisted fiber orientation is
observed.
4) The printed UHDC-1.5% specimens outperform others in
both flexural strength, deformability and energy dissipation
capacity. The formation of zig-zag critical crack is used to
explain the enhancement in deformability and energy dissi-
pation capacity of printed UHDC.
5) Significant anisotropy is observed on failure patterns, com-
pressive strength and flexural energy dissipation capacity
of printed UHDC. But negligible anisotropy is observed on
flexural strength of UHDC-2.0% and deformability of
UHDC-1.5. The printed UHDC-1.5% and UHDC-2.0% show
I3D in energy dissipation higher than 1.40, indicating signifi-
cant influence brought by printing.
To sum up, the printed UHDC-1.5% performs even better in
mechanical properties than printed UHDC-2.0% though incorpo-
rated with less fibers. This brings advantages from both mechani-
cal property and material cost aspects. However, the current
study is only a preliminary attempt to the 3D printing of UHDC.
The printing and mechanical testing scale is still limited. More sys-
tematic investigations on the other mechanical-anisotropic behav-
ior of printed UHDC from both materials and structural levels are
still needed to be conducted. Also, the influence of different nozzle
types and interlayer bond strength on the mechanical property of
printed UHDC is of interest.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Junhong Ye: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis,
Investigation, Writing - original draft. Can Cui: Data curation, For-
mal analysis. Jiangtao Yu: Conceptualization, Funding acquisition,
Supervision, Writing - review & editing. Kequan Yu: Writing -
review & editing. Fangyuan Dong: Supervision, Writing - review
& editing.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing finan-
cial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared
to influence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgements
The authors gratefully acknowledge to the project 51778461
and 51978504, which are supported by the National Natural
Science Foundation of China. This research is also sponsored by
Nantong Hongji Company. Mr. Zhou Xinji is highly acknowledged.
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