Design of reinforced concrete beams with steel fibers in the ultimate limit state

This paper carries out a design analysis of reinforced concrete beams with steel fibers following the fib Model Code 2010 (MC 2010) procedures. The values obtained from the design calculations are compared with the experimental results of reinforced concrete beams with 20kg/m³ and 60 kg/m³ of steel fibers submitted to four-point bending tests. In the first part, the procedures for the classification and characterization of the material are explained. The experimental results of three-point bending tests performed on notched steel fiber reinforced concrete (FRC) beams following EN 14651 procedures are described. Moreover, the characterization of the FRC beams according to MC 2010, are carried out. In the second part, the flexural design of reinforced concrete beams with steel fibers, according to MC 2010, is carried out. A sectional analysis is performed in order to obtain the moment-curvature and the force-vertical displacement curves. The theoretical values are compared with the experimental results. Besides, a linear statistic analysis by means of the Rule of Mixture is carried out in order to analyze the variation of the flexural capacity of the reinforced beams with different amounts of steel fibers. The results demonstrated that the design rules described in the MC 2010 are on the safe side. The flexural resistance of concretes with different amounts of fiber incorporation can be determined by the Rule of Mixture, which has shown a high correlation factor (R2) with the experimental values.