Fibre Reinforcement Steel Versus Macro(Structural) Synthetic

Around the millennium, suppliers of micro synthetic fibres started to offer macro synthetic fibres, with the typical marketing approach being that they can provide the same performance as steel fibres at a lower cost per cubic metre and with enhanced durability (no rusting). Interestingly, the performance established for steel fibres using the EFNARC(1996) panel test to a mid point defl ection of 25mm and the correlating 40mm mid point defl ection of the newly introduced ASTM C-1550(2005) test was taken by the early suppliers of macro synthetic fibres to be the bench mark by which macro synthetic fibres should be compared to steel, despite the fact that the shapes of the curves for each type of fibre are markedly different with no work having been undertaken to establish the relevance of a performance test determined for steel fibres when using macro synthetics.

This is not to say that macro synthetic fibres do not have their applications, a number of fibre suppliers actually sell both steel and synthetic. This paper has been written to provide what will hopefully be perceived as an unbiased assessment of the true comparative performance of steel and macro synthetic fibres.