February 2001

Materials Letters 47 Ž2001. 297–304

www.elsevier.comrlocatermatlet

Relationship between impact energy and compression toughness

energy of high-strength fiber-reinforced concrete
¨ ¨ Eren, Tahir Çelik )
Khaled Marar, Ozgur
Department of CiÕil Engineering, Eastern Mediterranean UniÕersity, Gazimagusa, Mersin 10 Turkey
Received 8 June 2000; received in revised form 18 July 2000; accepted 21 July 2000

Abstract

A simple, economical, and practical drop-weight impact testing machine was developed to determine the impact
resistance for high-strength fiber-reinforced concrete ŽHSFRC. composite. Impact and compression tests were carried out on
concrete cylinders reinforced with three different aspect ratios of hooked-end steel fibers lrd Žlengthrdiameter.: 60, 75, and
83 Ž30r0.50, 60r0.80, and 50r0.60 mmrmm., and four different percentages of steel fibers 0.5%, 1.0%, 1.5% and 2.0% by
volume of concrete. For each aspect ratio and volume of fibers, complete stress–strain curves of HSFRC were generated in
order to determine the total energy absorbed for each cylindrical specimen in compression. The addition of steel fibres to
concrete has improved impact resistance and also the compression toughness. The test results showed that a logarithmic
relation exists between compression toughness energy Ž ECt . by means of the generated stress–stress curves from the
compressive tests and the impact energy ŽE I . by means of the modified impact machine for HSFRC at different lrd ratio of
60, 75, and 83. q 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords: High-strength fiber-reinforced concrete; Impact energy; Compression toughness energy; Compressive strength; Stress–strain
curve

1. Introduction istics of HSC. The short discrete fibers delay the

High-strength concrete ŽHSC. is generally speci-
fied as concrete having a compressive strength above
41 MPa w1x. HSC composite is a brittle material, and
brittleness can be reduced by the addition of short
randomly distributed discrete fibers up to volume of
2.0% or even greater w2x. The addition of steel fibers
to HSC improves resistance to impact w3x and frac-
ture that are governed by the toughness character-
)
Corresponding author. Tel.: q90-392-3653669; fax: q90-
392-3654479.
E-mail address: tahir@emu.edu.tr ŽT. Çelik..
propagation of microcracks, due to the fact that
fibers bridge these cracks and restrain their widen-
ing, thus improve the post-peak ductility and energy
absorption capacity w4x. The effect of fibers on the
mechanical behavior of high-strength fiber-rein-
forced concrete ŽHSFRC. composite is governed by
the volume of fibers, aspect ratio of fibers and bond
between fibers and cementitious matrix. Toughness
or energy absorption capacity can be determined
from the area under the stress–strain curve in com-
pression, which is the total energy absorbed prior to
complete separation of the specimen. In this re-
search, the area under the stress–strain curve was
determined by using a computer program written in

00167-577Xr01r$ - see front matter q 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 1 6 7 - 5 7 7 X Ž 0 0 . 0 0 2 5 3 - 6
298 K. Marar et al.r Materials Letters 47 (2001) 297–304

Fortran Language based on Trapezoidal Rule that
can read from the data file up to the required strain.
A repeated impact drop-weight test Žequipment
and procedure. has been published by the ACI Com-
mittee 544 w5x report that yields a number of blows
required to cause a certain level of distress in FRC
specimen. Some researchers have used the impact
apparatus that is reported by the ACI Committee 544
w6–9x. Although this method can be used for FRC, it
is difficult to use it for HSFRC due to the small
weight of the hammer Ž4.54 kg.. On the other hand,
the number of blows is less if a larger mass Ž13.5 kg.
is used, which is more effective in transmitting
impact loads.
The objective of the present work is to produce a
relationship between compression toughness and im-
pact resistance of HSFRC composites by comparing
them since these two properties are a measure of the
energy absorption capacity of the material. Impact
energy was determined by using the simple and
economical drop-weight impact testing machine de-
veloped in this paper, which can be used also on a

Fig. 1. Impact testing machine.

 K. Marar et al.r Materials Letters 47 (2001) 297–304 299

Table 1
X
Test results of VeBe time, air content, compressive strength Ž f c ., impact energy Ž E I ., and compression toughness energy Ž ECT . at 28 days
X
lrd Volume VeBe Air fc Impact resistance EI at complete ECT at strain of
Ratio of fibers time content ŽMPa. Žnumber of blows. failure 0.023 mmrmm
Ž%. Žs. Ž%. First Complete N m ŽCOV. a N m ŽCOV. a
crack failure
– 0.0 3.7 0.95 74.5 4 5 111 Ž0.2059. 1124 Ž0.0747.
60 0.5 4.0 0.95 82.2 8 18 398 Ž0.1404. 2933 Ž0.0785.
60 1.0 8.5 0.80 82.8 22 45 994 Ž0.0890. 4237 Ž0.0600.
60 1.5 12.7 0.80 84.6 40 75 1656 Ž0.0768. 5300 Ž0.0634.
60 2.0 16.4 0.65 85.9 101 192 4240 Ž0.0913. 6030 Ž0.0450.
75 0.5 2.7 0.90 80.4 17 37 817 Ž0.1013. 4421 Ž0.0860.
75 1.0 13.8 0.80 82.5 29 56 1237 Ž0.0722. 5400 Ž0.0669.
75 1.5 14.2 0.80 84.2 43 151 3335 Ž0.0874. 7041 Ž0.0812.
75 2.0 94.6 0.70 87.9 116 276 6095 Ž0.0670. 7873 Ž0.0329.
83 0.5 5.6 1.05 83.0 21 48 1060 Ž0.0971. 5081 Ž0.0954.
83 1.0 9.0 0.95 83.9 33 68 1502 Ž0.0905. 6469 Ž0.0673.
83 1.5 15.7 0.80 86.0 81 172 3798 Ž0.0876. 7320 Ž0.0732.
83 2.0 102.2 0.65 87.3 193 373 8237 Ž0.0346. 8552 Ž0.0304.
a
Coefficient of variation.

Fig. 2. Stress–strain curves for lrd ratio of 60 at steel fiber volume of 0.5%, 1.0%, 1.5%, and 2.0%.
300 K. Marar et al.r Materials Letters 47 (2001) 297–304
construction site. On the other hand, a sophisticated
closed-loop, servo controlled compression testing
machine Ž3000 kN capacity. was used for determin-
ing the compression toughness energy for the HS-
FRC composites. In this investigation, the authors
have attempted to obtain a relationship between these
two important properties.
2. Experimental program
2.1. Concrete
The water-cementitious ratio used in this investi-
gation was 0.31. Blast-furnace slag cement comply-
ing with ASTM C 595-97 w10x was used for all
mixes. The specific gravities of the fine and coarse
aggregates were 2.67 and 2.68, respectively. The
maximum size of coarse aggregate was 20 mm. All
Fig. 3. Stress–strain curves for lrd ratio of 75 at steel fiber volume of 0.5%, 1.0%, 1.5%, and 2.0%.
the aggregates used were crushed limestone and their
gradings complied with ASTM C 33-93 w11x. High
range water reducing admixture complying with
ASTM C 494-92 w11x was used. The HSFRC mix
proportions including blast-furnace slag cement, sil-
ica fume, water, superplasticizer, coarse aggregate
and fine aggregate were 550, 55, 195, 17, 1066, and
710 kgrm3 , respectively. Hooked-end bundled steel
fibers with three different lrd ratios of 60, 75, and
83 were used in this investigation. The length and
diameter of the three types of steel fibers were 30,
60, 50 mm and 0.5, 0.8, 0.6 mm, respectively. Four
different fiber volumes were added to each series of
mixes at 0.5%, 1.0%, 1.5%, and 2.0% by volume of
concrete Ž39.25, 78.50, 117.75, and 157.0 kgrm3 ..
The workability of freshly mixed HSFRC was
measured by using a VeBe time according to BS
1881: Part 104: 1983 w12x. HSFRC cylindrical speci-
mens were prepared in accordance with BS 1881:
 K. Marar et al.r Materials Letters 47 (2001) 297–304
Part 111: 1983 w13x, and all the specimens were
compacted in cylindrical steel molds by means of a
vibrating table.
2.2. Impact energy tests
The impact test was performed on 150 mm Ždiam-
eter. = 60 mm Žlength. concrete cylinders cut from
150 = 300 mm diameter cylinders by using a ma-
sonry saw. Twelve cylinders were tested to obtain
the average number of blows required to cause the
first crack and the ultimate failure at 28 days of age.
The impact testing machine developed is shown in
Fig. 1. The weight of the drop hammer was 13.5 kg
and the height of drop was 0.30 m. During the
impact, the speed of the drop hammer Ž V I . is mea-
sured, and it was calculated as 1.8088 mrs. The
Fig. 4. Stress–strain curves for lrd ratio of 83 at steel fiber volume of 0.5%, 1.0%, 1.5%, and 2.0%.
301
impact energy delivered to the specimen produced
by each blow is calculated as follows:
1
EI s MVI2 N Ž 1.
2
where EI is impact energy ŽN m., M is mass of the
drop hammer Žkg., VI is impact speed Žmrs., and N
is number of blows. In other investigations w14,15x,
impact energy was calculated as: mass of drop ham-
mer Žkg. multiplied by gravity acceleration Žmrs 2 .
multiplied by height of drop Žm..
2.3. Compression toughness energy tests
Compression toughness tests were performed on
150 = 300 mm HSFRC cylinders. Six cylinders were
tested for each series at the age of 28 days. Tests
were conducted in a digital closed-loop servo con-
302 K. Marar et al.r Materials Letters 47 (2001) 297–304

trolled compression testing machine with a capacity
of 3000 kN. The stress–strain curves were obtained
by using four linear variable differential transformers
ŽLVDT. that were placed around the test specimen to
measure the axial plate-to-plate deformations. A per-
sonal computer serving, as a data acquisition system,
was used to read the data. The loading rate adopted
in this investigation was 0.03 mmrmin. Energy ab-
sorption in compression was calculated as the area
under the stress–strain curve ŽN m. at a maximum
strain of 0.023 mmrmm for all cylindrical speci-
mens. In an earlier investigation w16x, it was ob-
served that the extensometer gauge, attached to the
mid-section of cylindrical specimen Žgauge length of
100 mm., reading was disturbed by cracks formed on
the specimen surface. It was concluded that the
extensometer gauge reading might not be useful in
the study of the strain softening behavior of concrete.
In this investigation, axial plate-to-plate deformation
measurements were chosen.

Fig. 5. Relationship between compression toughness energy and impact energy for steel fiber ration of 60, 75, and 83.
 K. Marar et al.r Materials Letters 47 (2001) 297–304
3. Experimental results and discussion
The test results of VeBe time, air content, com-
pressive strength Ž fcX ., impact energy Ž EI ., and com-
pression toughness energy Ž ECT . at 28 days are
shown in Table 1.
3.1. Impact energy test results
As can be seen from Table 1, increasing the fiber
content increased the impact resistance for all of lrd
ratios of the steel fibers. A 2.0% fiber volume and
lrd ratio of 60, 75, and 83 increased the impact
energy of the plain HSC by 38, 55, and 74 times,
respectively.
3.2. Compression toughness energy test results
It can be seen from Table 1 that, as the fiber
volume and fiber aspect ratio increased, compression
toughness energy also increased. For lrd ratio of 60,
75, and 83 at steel fiber volume of 2.0%, the com-
pression toughness energies were about 5.4, 7.0, and
7.6 times higher than that of plain HSC, respectively.
Figs. 2–4 show complete stress–strain curves for
lrd ratio of 60, 75, and 83 at different volumes of
steel fibers, respectively. From these figures, it can
be seen that there is an increase in the slope of the
descending portion of the stress–strain curve as the
fiber volume fraction decreases. While the fiber vol-
ume increased, the post-peak ductility and energy
absorption of the HSFRC in compression increased.
The strain at the peak compressive stress also in-
creased by increasing the volume of fiber.
3.3. Comparison between compression toughness en-
ergy and impact energy
The relationship between impact energy and com-
pression toughness energy is shown in Fig. 5 for
steel fibers with lrd ratio of 60, 75, and 83, respec-
tively. As the fiber content and lrd ratio increased
both the compression toughness energy and the im-
pact energy increased.
For steel fiber lrd ratio of 60, 75, and 83,
regression analyses provided a logarithmic relation-
303
ship between compression toughness energy Ž ECT .
and impact energy Ž EI . as shown below:
ECT Ž 60 . s 1392.8ln Ž E IrEI 0 . q 1185.2 Ž 2.
ECT Ž 75 . s 1706.4ln Ž E IrEI 0 . q 1132.3 Ž 3.
ECT Ž 83 . s 1735.6ln Ž E IrEI 0 . q 1293.0 Ž 4.
In the above relations, ECT is compression toughness
energy ŽN m., E I is impact energy ŽN m., and E I0 is
the impact energy ŽN m. of the plain HSC. The
correlation coefficients for lrd ratio of 60, 75, and
83 are 0.994, 0.998, and 0.991, respectively.
As a result, if the impact energy is obtained by
using the drop weight impact testing machine, com-
pression toughness energy can be obtained from Eqs.
Ž2., Ž3., and Ž4..
4. Conclusions
Increasing the volume of steel fibers leads to
increase in impact resistance. Impact resistance of
HSFRC with a fiber volume percentage of 2.0% and
an aspect ratio of 83 increased about 74 times com-
pared to that of plain concrete. Compression tough-
ness Žarea under stress–strain curve. significantly
increased due to the addition of steel fibers to the
plain HSC. The relationship between compression
toughness energy and impact energy of HSFRC
composite for steel fiber aspect ratio of 60, 75, and
83 was found to be a logarithmic function. It can be
said that from impact testing machine Ždrop-weight
test., compression toughness energy of HSFRC com-
posites can be obtained. This helps the engineers in
designing and construction of structures where com-
pression energy absorption is especially important.
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