The present paper of a series deals with the experimental characterisation of flexural toughness properties of structural concrete containing different volume of hooked-end steel fibre reinforcement (75 kg/m3, 150 kg/m3). Third-point flexural tests were carried out on steel fibre reinforced concrete beams having a cross-section of 80 mm × 85 mm with the span of 765 mm, hence the shear span to depth ratio was 3. Beams were sawn out of steel fibre reinforced slab elements (see Part I) in order to take into consideration the introduced privilege fibre orientation (I and II) and the position of the beam (Ba-a, Ba-b, Ba-c) before sawing (see Part I). Flexural toughness properties were determined considering different standard specifications, namely the method of the ASTM (American Standards for Testing Materials), the process of the JSCE (Japan Society of Civil Engineering), and the final proposal of Banthia and Trottier for the post cracking strength. Consequently, behaviour of steel fibre reinforced concrete was examined in bending taking into consideration different experimental parameters such as fibre content, concrete mix proportions, fibre orientation, positions of test specimens in the formwork, while experimental constants were the size of specimens, the type of fibre used and the test set-up and test arrangement.
Steel fibre-reinforced concrete: Multi-scale characterisation towards numerical modelling
