Construction and Building Materials 148 (2017) 369–375

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Construction and Building Materials

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Technical note

Shear behaviour and mechanical properties of steel fibre-reinforced

cement-based and geopolymer oil palm shell lightweight aggregate
concrete
Kim Hung Mo ⇑, Khai Hung Yeoh, Iftekhair Ibnul Bashar, U. Johnson Alengaram ⇑, Mohd Zamin Jumaat
Department of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

h i g h l i g h t s

Shear behaviour of steel fibre cement-based and geopolymer OPS LWAC investigated.

Mechanical properties comparison of steel fibre cement-based and geopolymer LWAC.

Tensile strength and toughness increase more evident for cement than geopolymer LWAC.

Shear capacity improved with fibres and existing prediction equations are conservative.

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

Article history: The shear behaviour and mechanical properties (compressive, splitting tensile and flexural strengths) as
Received 21 November 2016 well as the flexural toughness of steel fibre-reinforced cement-based and geopolymer oil palm shell light-
Received in revised form 15 April 2017 weight aggregate concrete (OPS LWAC) were experimentally investigated in this paper. Steel fibres were
Accepted 4 May 2017
added at various volume fractions for the cement-based OPS LWAC (0%, 0.5% and 1.0%) and geopolymer
Available online 13 May 2017
OPS LWAC (0%, 0.5%). Test results showed that steel fibre improved the mechanical properties of concrete,
particularly for the splitting tensile strength whereas flexural toughness enhancement with the use of
Keywords:
steel fibres was more evident for the cement-based OPS LWAC than the geopolymer concrete. The shear
Shear behaviour
Geopolymer concrete
resistance of OPS LWAC beams was also found to improve with the addition of steel fibres and existing
Lightweight aggregate concrete prediction equations for shear capacity of steel fibre-reinforced lightweight concrete was determined to
Fibre reinforced concrete be conservative for the steel fibre-reinforced cement-based and geopolymer OPS LWAC.
Mechanical properties Ó 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction elimination of cement usage, one of the greatest benefits of

Utilization of lightweight aggregate concrete (LWAC) exerts cer-
tain advantage over normal concrete (NC) in structural members,
such as reduction in self-weight, favourable effects towards seis-
mic forces and foundation of buildings supported by soil with
low bearing capacity [1]. Commonly used lightweight aggregate
includes expanded clay and expanded shale while recent
researches in South East Asia also suggested the alternative of
incorporating oil palm shell (OPS) – a solid waste material from
agriculture industry – as lightweight aggregate to produce struc-
tural LWAC [2]. The potential saving in transportation costs for
pre-fabricated LWAC members has since encouraged the develop-
ment of geopolymer OPS LWAC [3]. This is because apart from the
⇑ Corresponding authors.
E-mail addresses: khmo@um.edu.my (K.H. Mo), johnson@um.edu.my
(U.J. Alengaram).
geopolymer concrete is the short curing time and early strength
gain, which is suitable for pre-fabricated concrete products.
However, LWAC often failed in a more brittle manner than NC.
Shear failure of LWAC members is known to be one of the major
problems that cause collapse of structures [4]. Besides that, the
use of weaker lightweight aggregate is likely to cause reduction
in aggregate interlocking effect in LWAC which could further
reduce the shear capacity of reinforced concrete member [5].
Smooth shear failure paths were observed in LWAC [4] due to
reduced aggregate interlocking effect as a result of cleavage of
lightweight aggregate [6]. Kim and Jang [7] also found that the
shear strength of LWAC beam reinforced with FRP bars were lower
compared to the corresponding NC beam. Therefore, it is desired to
increase the ductility of LWAC through the incorporation of steel
fibres. Combination of steel fibres with reinforcement is ideal
due to the enhanced toughness of material which reduces crack
width and increases tension stiffening [1].

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2017.05.017
0950-0618/Ó 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
370 K.H. Mo et al. / Construction and Building Materials 148 (2017) 369–375
In the past, it was found that the inclusion of steel fibres had
beneficial effects in enhancing the flexural toughness of LWAC,
such as those from expanded clay [8] and sintered pulverized fuel
ash aggregates [9]. Moreover, steel fibre-reinforced LWAC was
found to exhibit superior mechanical properties than plain LWAC,
particularly the splitting and flexural tensile strengths. It was
reported that the enhancement in the splitting and flexural tensile
strengths to range between 61–140% and 117–200%, respectively
when steel fibre of between volume fractions of 0.5–2.0% were
added into concrete prepared with lightweight coarse aggregate
such as pumice [10], shale [11], expanded clay [12] and cold-
bonded fly ash [13]. When reinforced concrete structural beam
was considered, Kang et al. [14] observed a 30% increment in the
shear strength capacity of LWAC beams when 0.75% steel fibres
were added. Swamy et al. [15] found out that the increase in shear
capacity of lightweight concrete I-beams could be increased
between 60 and 210% in the presence of 1.0% steel fibres. Shoiab
et al. [6] also reported that the shear failure was more ductile
and experienced greater crack widening in the case of steel fibre-
reinforced LWAC beam compared to the beam without fibres. This
was attributed to the pulling out of the steel fibres from the
cement matrix and such ductile failure could provide important
warning about the imminent shear failure.
Past researches have shown similar encouraging performances
of steel fibre-reinforced OPS cement-concrete as well as the resul-
tant reinforced concrete structures [16]. On the other hand, there
are only limited literature available regarding the performance of
steel fibre-reinforced geopolymer concrete, with Ganesan et al.
[17] and Ng et al. [18] carried out research work on enhancing
the mechanical properties and shear capacity of geopolymer NC,
respectively through the use of steel fibres.
There is no previous research done on improving the shear
behaviour of OPS LWAC as well as the corresponding geopolymer
concrete through the use of steel fibres. Hence, this paper describes
a comparative study on the shear behaviour of cement-based and
geopolymer OPS LWAC with and without added steel fibres. In
addition, the relevant mechanical properties and flexural tough-
ness of the concretes are discussed.
2. Research significance
LWAC is known to have lower shear capacity compared to NC
and hence this study aims to explore the effectiveness of steel fibre
in enhancing the shear capacity of concrete made with local OPS
waste as lightweight aggregate. While there are some studies of
steel fibre-reinforced NC and other types of LWAC, it is important
to ascertain the efficiency and thus the feasibility of incorporating
steel fibres in OPS LWAC. In addition, with the growing trend of
research in sustainable cement-less geopolymer concrete, the
investigation of the effect on the shear and mechanical perfor-
mances due to the addition of steel fibres could provide a platform
for the development of geopolymer concrete as a future construc-
tion material.
3. Experimental programme
3.1. Materials and mix proportion
Coarse and fine aggregate used for this study were crushed OPS
aggregate (2.36–9 mm) and local mining sand (0.3–5 mm), respec-
tively. The sieve analysis of OPS aggregate and local mining sand is
shown in Fig. 1. The specific gravity of the coarse and fine aggre-
gates was 1.35 and 2.60, respectively. Crushed OPS were pre-
soaked in water and used in saturated surface dry condition for
casting of concrete.
120
100
Percentage passing (%)
80
60
OPS
40
Sand
20
0
0.1 1 10 100
Size (mm)
Fig. 1. Sieve analysis of OPS and mining sand.
For the cement-based OPS LWAC, the binding material was
ordinary Portland cement (OPC) while the binding material for
the geopolymer OPS LWAC was Class-F fly ash, activated with
the combination of 14 M NaOH and liquid Na2SiO3 at a ratio of 2.5.
Laboratory pipe water was used as mixing water for both mixes
and a polycarboxylate ether-based superplasticizer (SP) was added
in the case of cement-based OPS LWAC to facilitate workability.
Hooked-end shape steel fibres of 35 mm length and aspect ratio
of 65 were used as fibre reinforcement. High-yield steel bar of
grade 500 MPa with diameter of 12 mm was used as main rein-
forcement in reinforced concrete beam.
Table 1 shows the mix proportions of the cement-based and
geopolymer OPS LWAC, respectively. The mix proportions were
chosen based on trial mixing to obtain targeted cube compressive
strength of 30 MPa for the concretes without fibres. For the
cement-based OPS LWAC, there are three different steel fibre con-
tents, namely 0%, 0.5% and 1.0% addition by volume whereas for
the geopolymer OPS LWAC, there is the control specimen without
fibre and specimen with 0.5% steel fibre volume. Based on trial
mixing, due to the viscosity of the geopolymer OPS LWAC, it is
impractical to incorporate 1.0% steel fibre volume and hence such
mix was omitted from the investigation. Fig. 2 shows the prepara-
tion of geopolymer concrete.
3.2. Specimen testing
After de-moulding, the cement-based OPS LWAC specimens
were subjected to water-curing for 28 days before testing while
the geopolymer OPS LWAC specimens were heat-cured for 24 h
at temperature of 65 °C followed by air-curing in laboratory condi-
tions until day 28 for testing.
Mechanical properties tests such as cube compressive strength,
splitting tensile and flexural strength tests were carried out in
accordance with BS EN 12390-3: 2002, BS EN 12390-6: 2000 and
BS EN 12390-5: 2000, respectively. Prism specimens measuring
100  100  500 mm3 were tested for flexural toughness based
on ASTM C1018-97.
For the testing of the shear behaviour, reinforced concrete beam
with cross-section area of 150 mm  150 mm and length of
1300 mm was cast. The longitudinal reinforcement consisted of 2
steel rebar of 12 mm diameter and the concrete cover was
25 mm. No shear link was provided for the beam. The loading
arrangement for the shear-critical reinforced concrete beam is
shown in Fig. 3. Loading from actuator was transferred to the beam
via a spreader beam of 700 mm length. The loading rate was fixed
at 2 mm/min and the mid-span deflection of the beam was mea-
sured using a LVDT.
 K.H. Mo et al. / Construction and Building Materials 148 (2017) 369–375 371

Table 1
Mix proportion of cement-based and geopolymer OPS LWAC.

Mix Content (kg/m3) Volume (%)

Cement Fly ash Sand OPS Water SP Alkaline activator Steel fibre
C0 540 – 990 375 165 2.4 – 0
C0.5 540 – 990 375 165 2.4 – 0.5
C1.0 540 – 990 375 165 2.4 – 1.0
G0 – 635 635 315 50 – 317.5 0
G0.5 – 635 635 315 50 – 317.5 0.5

Fig. 2. (a) Addition of alkaline solution to dry-mixed materials (b) Mixing of geopolymer concrete (c) Fresh geopolymer concrete after casting and vibration.

4. Results and discussion

4.1. Mechanical properties

Load from
actuator
350 mm 350 mm The 28-day mechanical properties of steel fibre-reinforced
cement-based and geopolymer OPS LWAC are presented in Table 2.
2T12
It was found that the inclusion of steel fibres generally improved
the mechanical properties of the OPS LWAC. The increment in
150 mm the compressive strength, however, was to a lower extent com-
pared to the splitting and flexural tensile strengths. This is because
the fibres do not contribute actively in load-sharing in the direction
1200 mm of compression loading as stretching and straining of fibres are not
1300 mm experienced [19]. The increment was found to be about 7% and 14%
when 0.5% and 1.0% steel fibres were added to the cement-based
OPS LWAC, respectively. This corresponds well with the previously
published results on steel fibre-reinforced OPS LWAC [20,21]. For
equal fibre volume, it was found that the increment in the com-

Table 2
28-day mechanical properties results.

Mix Compressive strength Splitting tensile Flexural strength

(MPa) strength (MPa) (MPa)
C0 34.04 3.155 4.241
C0.5 36.63 4.607 5.392
C1.0 38.85 6.124 6.180
G0 25.92 2.129 2.948
G0.5 27.79 3.352 3.182
Fig. 3. Shear test of reinforced concrete beam.
372 K.H. Mo et al. / Construction and Building Materials 148 (2017) 369–375

pressive strength was similar for the case of the geopolymer OPS 25
LWAC, which was 7% for the addition of 0.5% steel fibres. Similar C0
increment was also reported by Ganesan et al. [17] and Kim 20 C0.5
et al. [22] for steel fibre-reinforced geopolymer and alkali-
C1.0
activated NC, respectively. In addition, Ganesan et al. [17] reported

Load (kN)
15
little difference in the compressive strength increment of cement-
based and geopolymer NC when similar amount of steel fibres
10
were added.
On the other hand, the beneficial effects of steel fibres were
5
more apparent in increasing the splitting and flexural tensile
strength of the OPS LWAC. For instance, splitting tensile strengths
were improved by 46% and 94% when 0.5% and 1.0% steel fibres 0
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5
were added in the cement-based OPS LWAC, respectively. The
Deflection (mm)
increase was similar for the corresponding geopolymer OPS LWAC
whereby the increment was 57% when 0.5% of steel fibres by vol-
12
ume were added. The enhancement in the splitting tensile strength
G0
could be attributed to the crack bridging ability of the fibres, 10
whereby tensile stress was transferred across the fibres and G0.5
delayed propagation of cracks, giving rise to tensile strength of 8

Load (kN)
the concrete. Past investigations on steel fibre-reinforced geopoly-
mer NC showed that the increment in splitting tensile strength was 6
lower, which ranged between 12 and 17% when 0.5% steel fibres
were added [17,19] while the increment was 6% for the case of 4

alkali-activated slag NC [23]. Nevertheless, it was also reported

2
in the past that the increment in splitting tensile strength due to
steel fibre addition between geopolymer and cement NC [17] as
0
well as between alkali-activated and cement NC [23] was similar. 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5
In the case of flexural strength, the increment was about 27% Deflection (mm)
and 46% when steel fibres of 0.5% and 1.0% were added in the
cement-based OPS LWAC, respectively, whereas the increment Fig. 4. Flexural load-deflection relationship of prism specimens.
was only about 8% when 0.5% steel fibres were added in geopoly-
mer OPS LWAC. The increment for the latter was in a slightly lower
18.0
range compared to reported results of between 11 and 22% for
geopolymer NC [17,19]. 16.0 15.1 15.2

14.0 13.4
Toughness indices

12.0
4.2. Flexural toughness
10.0
7.9 8.2 I5
Fig. 4 shows the load-deflection relationships of prism speci- 8.0 7.2
I10
mens under third-point loading. The flexural toughness was calcu- 6.0
4.1 4.2 I20
lated using the area under the load-deflection graph. The flexural 3.8
4.0
toughness of the C0, C0.5 and C1.0 were determined to be 0.54,
25.72 and 34.58 kNmm, respectively. For the geopolymer OPS 2.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0

LWAC specimens, the flexural toughness was 0.30 and 13.66 0.0
kNmm for the mixes G0 and G0.5, respectively. According to ASTM C0 C0.5 C1.0 G0 G0.5
Mix designation
C1018, the toughness parameters can be determined through the
toughness indices I5, I10 and I20. The calculated toughness indices Fig. 5. Toughness indices of steel fibre-reinforced OPS LWAC.
are given in Fig. 5. It was found that the toughness indices obtained
in the study correspond well to those reported in the past for steel
fibre-reinforced LWAC [16,24]. The inclusion of steel fibres was
found to significantly enhance the ductility of both types of con-
crete, as reflected in the increased flexural toughness and tough-
ness indices. Unlike specimens without fibres which failed
abruptly, the presence of steel fibres facilitated widening of cracks
through the action of fibres in stitching the macro-cracks, and
allowed progressive failure through pulling out of the fibres
(Fig. 6). Pulling out of fibres thus enabled the specimens to absorb
more energy and giving rise to ductility of the concrete. It is inter-
esting to note that the steel fibres could be a better proposition for
toughness enhancement in the cement-based OPS LWAC compared
to geopolymer OPS LWAC. From Fig. 4, it can be seen that for spec-
imens reinforced with 0.5% steel fibres, the reduction in flexural
load for the cement-based OPS LWAC was more gradual compared
to the geopolymer concrete and this could be due to the weaker
bonding between geopolymer matrix with steel fibres compared
to that for cement matrix. Fig. 6. Pulling out of steel fibres.
 K.H. Mo et al. / Construction and Building Materials 148 (2017) 369–375 373

4.3. Shear behaviour

All of the reinforced concrete beams experienced shear failure

upon formation of diagonal crack (Fig. 7). No tensile splitting along
longitudinal reinforcement was observed. Such failure mode was
also observed by Shoaib et al. [6] in steel fibre-reinforced expanded
clay LWAC. Broken specimens revealed that there was partial frac-
ture of OPS aggregate while some of the cracks were between the
matrix-OPS interface (Fig. 8), suggesting that the OPS lightweight
aggregate could exhibit aggregate interlocking effect to a certain
extent. On the other hand, the crack pattern for both cement-
based and geopolymer OPS LWAC beams with and without fibres
showed little difference. Crack patterns are usually affected by
the shear span/depth ratio rather than the type of concrete [25].
Fig. 8. Broken specimens showing aggregate interlocking effect of OPS.
The load-deflection behaviours of the shear-critical reinforced
concrete beams are plotted in Fig. 9. It was found that the steel
fibre addition enhanced the shear resistance of the beams for both
C0 C0.5 C1.0
cement-based and geopolymer OPS LWAC. The maximum shear
90
force of the cement-based OPS LWAC beams was 50.7 kN whereas
addition of steel fibres at 0.5% and 1.0% volume fraction resulted in 80
increase of 51% and 68% to 76.6 kN and 85.0 kN, respectively. For 70

Shear force (kN)

the geopolymer OPS LWAC beams, the shear resistance was 60
increased by 37% from 36.5 kN to 50.1 kN when 0.5% steel fibres
50
were added. In order to take into account the difference in com-
pressive strength of concrete, the normalized shear capacity is 40
taken as: 30

 20
l ¼ V u = bdf 0:5
cu ð1Þ
10

where l is the normalized shear capacity, Vu is the ultimate shear 0

0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14
capacity (kN), b is the width of beam (mm), d is the effective depth
Deflection (mm)
of beam (mm) and fcu is the cube compressive strength of concrete
(MPa).
G0 G0.5
The normalized shear capacity was determined as 0.97, 1.42, 60
1.53, 0.80 and 1.06 for mixes C0, C0.5, C1.0, G0 and G0.5, respec-
tively. The higher shear capacity of the fibre-reinforced concrete 50
beams was largely due to the improvement in tensile strength of
Shear force (kN)

concrete due to addition of fibres. Besides that, the steel fibres pro- 40
vided tension resistance towards diagonal crack surfaces. In addi-
tion, the deflection at failure was significantly increased when 30
steel fibres were added, indicating enhanced ductility of the
20

C0 10

0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16
Deflection (mm)
C0.5
Fig. 9. Shear force-deflection graphs of shear-critical reinforced concrete beams.

beams. This was largely contributed by the bridging of macro-

C1.0
cracks by the fibres, allowing greater deformation of the beams
before failure. As shown in Fig. 6, because of the fibre bridging
action, the diagonal crack width was larger at failure for the
fibre-reinforced concrete beams.
G0 It is also noted that the normalized shear capacity for the
cement-based OPS LWAC was higher than the corresponding
geopolymer concrete. This might be attributed to the weaker
geopolymer matrix-OPS aggregate interface which reduced the
aggregate interlocking effect in the geopolymer concrete beams.
G0.5 Besides that, the geopolymer concrete beams were observed to
experience higher deflection at the same load level than the
cement-based concrete beams, and this could be attributed to
Fig. 7. Shear failure of reinforced concrete beams. the lower stiffness of the geopolymer concrete beams.
374 K.H. Mo et al. / Construction and Building Materials 148 (2017) 369–375

Table 3
Comparison of predicted and experimental shear capacity.

Mix Experimental shear Predicted shear capacity (kN)

capacity, Vu (kN)
VEC2 Vpred-1 Vpred-2 Vpred-3
C0 50.7 18.8 (2.70) 19.4 (2.59) 26.4 (1.92) 20.9 (2.43)
C0.5 76.6 19.6 (3.91) 36.2 (2.12) 38.0 (2.02) 31.7 (2.42)
C1.0 85.0 20.4 (4.17) 45.1 (1.88) 46.4 (1.83) 40.7 (2.09)
G0 36.5 16.5 (2.21) 17.7 (2.06) 24.7 (1.48) 19.6 (1.86)
G0.5 50.1 17.3 (2.90) 34.4 (1.46) 36.8 (1.36) 30.3 (1.65)
*
Values in parentheses represent ratio of Vu/Vpred.

Table 4 assumption taken for the splitting tensile strength of the concrete.
Predicted shear capacity using experimental splitting tensile strength data.
When the actual splitting tensile strength was substituted into Eqs.
Mix Experimental shear Predicted shear capacity (kN) (4) and (5), it was found that the difference between the predicted
capacity, Vu (kN) and actual shear resistance of the OPS LWAC was much closer
Eq. (4) Eq. (5)
(Table 4), and the Eq. (4) by Kwak et al. [27] gave the best predic-
C0 50.7 40.5 (1.25) 29.5 (1.72)
C0.5 76.6 57.8 (1.32) 45.2 (1.70) tion of the shear strength of OPS LWAC beams.
C1.0 85.0 74.4 (1.14) 61.3 (1.39)
G0 36.5 32.2 (1.13) 23.6 (1.54)
G0.5 50.1 49.5 (1.01) 38.0 (1.32)
5. Conclusion
*
Values in parentheses represent ratio of Vu/Vpred. Based on the investigation carried out, it is concluded that the
presence of steel fibres brings upon enhancement in the mechani-
cal properties, flexural toughness and shear resistance of both
The experimental shear strength of the steel fibre-reinforced cement-based and geopolymer OPS LWAC. In terms of the mechan-
OPS LWAC beams in the study was compared with the predicted ical properties, addition of steel fibres had greater effect in enhanc-
shear strength of lightweight concrete (LWC) from BS EN 1992 ing the tensile strength compared to the compressive strength of
(Eq. (2)) as shown in Table 3. Generally, the shear resistance calcu- the concretes. Flexural test results highlighted the enhanced duc-
lated from BS EN 1992 was very conservative with regard to the tility of the concretes with added fibres, and this effect is more
actual shear strength of the OPS LWAC beams. Eq. (2), however, apparent in the cement-based than the geopolymer OPS LWAC.
did not take into account the effect of fibres; considering this, Kang Similarly, the shear resistance of the cement-based OPS LWAC
et al. [14] proposed Eqs. (3)–(5) for predicting the shear strength of beams is found to be greater compared to the corresponding
steel fibre-reinforced LWC based on modification to equations sug- geopolymer OPS LWAC; nevertheless existing equations can be
gested by Ashour et al. [26], Kwak et al. [27] and Narayanan and used conservatively to predict shear capacity of the concretes
Darwish [28], respectively. investigated.
h 1
i
V EC2 ¼ C Rd;c g1 kð100q1 f c Þ3 bd ð2Þ
Acknowledgement
where CRd,c is 0.15/cC, g1 = 0.40 + (0.60q/2200), k = 1 + (200/
d)0.5  2.0, reinforcement ratio q1 = As/bd, fc is the cylinder com- The financial support is provided by University of Malaya under
pressive strength (MPa), taken as 0.7fcu as reported by Mo et al. the grant RP037A-15AET: Enhancement of Concrete Properties
[29]; in which q = concrete density (kg/m3) and As = area of steel Made From Local Waste Materials Using Nano Particles.
(mm2).
sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
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qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi   #
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