RESEARCH ARTICLE


Crack Patterns in Reinforced and Fiber Reinforced Concrete Structures



B. Chiaia*, A.P. Fantilli, P. Vallini
Department of Structural and Geotechnical Engineering, Politecnico di Torino, Italy.


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© Chiaia et al.

open-access license: This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial 4.0 International Public License (CC BY-NC 4.0) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/legalcode), which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited.

Correspondence: * Address correspondence to this author at the Department of Structural and Geotechnical Engineering, Politecnico di Torino, Italy.


Abstract

The cracking phenomenon of members made of traditional reinforced concrete (RC) or by combining steel fibers and traditional reinforcing bars (R/FRC) is analyzed in this paper. Referring to the tensile zone of a beam subjected to bending moment and axial load, a unique block model is introduced to predict crack widths, crack lengths and crack distances. The proposed approach, based on the nonlinear behaviour of the cracked cement-based material in tension, and on the bond-slip interaction between rebars and concrete, provides crack patterns similar to those observed in different experimental campaigns. Cracks in R/FRC beams are generally narrower, and originate at small distances, than those observed in RC beams having the same geometry and reinforcement ratio. This is entirely due to the presence of fibers, here considered through the Reinforcing Index, which is the product of volume percentage and fiber aspect ratio. However, the beneficial effect of fiber-reinforcement vanishes with the increase of structural dimension. Thus, in the case of massive structures, it appears necessary a direct calculation of the crack width, even in the presence of fibers.