Concrete is a brittle material and weak in tension. Traditionally, web reinforcement in the form of vertical stirrups is used in reinforced concrete (RC) beams to take care of principal stresses that may cause failure when they are subjected to shear stresses. In recent decades, the potential of various types of fibers for improving post-cracking behavior of RC beams and replacing stirrups completely or partially have been studied. It has been shown that the use of steel fibers randomly dispersed and oriented in concrete has a significant potential for enhancing mechanical properties of RC beams. However, the studies on deep steel fiber reinforced concrete (SFRC) beams are limited when compared to those focusing on slender beams. An experimental program consisting of three RC and nine SFRC deep beams without stirrups were conducted in this study. Besides, various models developed for predicting the ultimate shear strength and diagonal cracking strength of SFRC deep beams without stirrups were applied to experimental data obtained from the literature and this study.

Conventional concrete needs some improvement in the mechanical properties, which can be obtained by different admixtures. However, making concrete samples costume always time and money. In this paper, different types of hybrid algorithms are applied to develop predictive models for forecasting compressive strength (CS) of concretes containing metakaolin (MK) and fly ash (FA). In this regard, three different algorithms have been used, namely multilayer perceptron (MLP), radial basis function (RBF), and support vector machine (SVR), to predict CS of concretes by considering most influencers input variables. These algorithms integrated with the grey wolf optimization (GWO) algorithm to increase the model's accuracy in predicting (GWMLP, GWRBF, and GWSVR). The proposed MLP models were implemented and evaluated in three different layers, wherein each layer, GWO, fitted the best neuron number of the hidden layer. Correspondingly, the key parameters of the SVR model are identified using the GWO method. Also, the optimization algorithm determines the hidden neurons' number and the spread value to set the RBF structure. The results show that the developed models all provide accurate predictions of the CS of concrete incorporating MK and FA with R² larger than 0.9972 and 0.9976 in the learning and testing stage, respectively. Regarding GWMLP models, the GWMLP1 model outperforms other GWMLP networks. All in all, GWSVR has the worst performance with the lowest indices, while the highest score belongs to GWRBF.

The production of geopolymer is considered as a cleaner process due to much lower CO₂ emission than that from the production of Portland cement. This paper presents a study of the potential use of recycled steel fibre (RSF) coming from the recycling process of the old tires in geopolymer mortars. Ground expanded perlite (EP) is used as a source of alumino-silicate and sodium hydroxide (NaOH=5, 10, 15, and 20M) is used as alkaline medium for geopolymer synthesis. RSFs were added to the mortar mixtures in four different volume fractions (0, 0.5, 1.0, and 1.5% of the total volume of mortar). The unit weight, ultrasound pulse velocity, flexural and compressive strength of expanded perlite based geopolymer mortar (EPGM) mixtures were determined. The microstructures of selected EPGMs were examined by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) analyses. The optimum molarity of sodium hydroxide solution was found to be 15M for geopolymer synthesis by EP. The test results revealed that RSFs can be successfully used for fibre-reinforced geopolymer production.

The experimental investigations into hooked-end round steel fibers (HSF) effect on the age-dependent strengths of high volume fly ash (HVFA) concrete is studied. The concrete was prepared with class F fly ash used as partial cement replacement varied from 0% to 70% on an equal weight basis. Two percentages of HSF (i.e., 0.5% and 1.5% by volume fraction) of 50 mm length were added in plain, and 50% fly ash concrete mixes. The compressive and flexural tensile strength was determined at 7, 28, 56, and 90 days. The strength results of fly ash concrete mixes with and without steel fibers were compared with the plain concrete strength. The test results indicated that the strength of fly ash concrete is comparable with the plain concrete strength and further increases with an increase in the percentage of steel fibers. The maximum flexure strength of HVFA concrete is found with 0.5% steel fibers. It is concluded that the HVFA concrete with steel fibers of 50 mm length can effectively be used in concrete construction. The analytical models are proposed to predict the age-dependent compressive and flexural tensile strength of HVFA concrete with and without HSF. The compressive and tensile strength of HVFA concrete with HSF can be predicted using these models when the 28-day compressive strength of plain concrete is known. The present study will be helpful in the design and construction of reinforced and pre-stressed concrete structures made with HVFA and HSF.

This paper investigates the shear behavior of reinforced concrete haunched beams (RCHBs) without stirrups. The research objective is to study the effectiveness of the ideal steel fiber (SF) ratio, which is used to resist shear strength, besides the influence of main steel reinforcement, compressive strength, and inclination angles of the haunched beam. The modeling and analysis were carried out by Finite Element Method (FE) based on a software package, called Atena-GiD 3D. The program of this study comprises two-part. One of them consists of nine results of experimental SF RCHBs which are used to identify the accuracy of FE models. The other part comprises 81 FE models, which are divided into three groups. Each group differed from another group by the area of main steel reinforcement (A_s) which are 226, 339, and 509 mm². The other parameters which are considered in each group in the same quantities to study the effectiveness of them, were steel fiber volumetric ratios (0.0, 0.5, and 1.0)%, compressive strength (20.0, 40.0, 60.0) MPa, and the inclination angle of haunched beam (0.0°, 10.0°, and 15.0°). Moreover, the parametric analysis was carried out on SF RCHBs to clarify the effectiveness of each parameter on the mechanical behavior of SF RCHBs. The results show that the correlation coefficient (R²) between shear load capacities of FE proposed models and shear load capacities of experimental SF RCHBs is 0.9793, while the effective inclination angle of the haunched beam is 10° which contributes to resisting shear strength, besides the ideal ratio of steel fibers is 1% when the compressive strength of SF RCHBs is more than 20 MPa.

Aluminosilicate materials as precursors are heterogenous in nature, consisting of inert and partially reactive portion, and have varying proportions depending upon source materials. It is essential to assess the reactivity of precursor prior to synthesize geopolymers. Moreover, reactivity may act as decisive factor for setting molar concentration of NaOH, curing temperature and setting proportion of different precursors. In this experimental work, the reactivities of two precursors, low calcium (fly ash (FA)) and high calcium (ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBS)), were assessed through the dissolution of aluminosilicate at (i) three molar concentrations (8, 12, and 16 M) of NaOH solution, (ii) 6 to 24 h dissolution time, and (iii) 20-100℃. Based on paratermeters influencing the reactivity, different proportions of ternary binders (two precursors and ordinary cement) were activated by the combined NaOH and Na2SiO3 solutions with two alkaline activators to precursor ratios, to synthesize the geopolymer. Reactivity results revealed that GGBS was 20-30% more reactive than FA at 20℃, at all three molar concentrations, but its reactivity decreased by 32-46% with increasing temperature due to the high calcium content. Setting time of geopolymer paste was reduced by adding GGBS due to its fast reactivity. Both GGBS and cement promoted the formation of all types of gels (i.e., C-S-H, C-A-S-H, and N-A-S-H). As a result, it was found that a specified mixing proportion could be used to improve the compressive strength over 30 MPa at both the ambient and hot curing conditions.

The two, NBD and SCB tests using gypsum circular discs each containing a single notch have been experimentally accomplished in a rock mechanics laboratory. These specimens have also been numerically modelled by a two-dimensional particle flow which is based on Discrete Element Method (DEM). Each testing specimen had a thickness of 5 cm with 10 cm in diameter. The specimens' lengths varied as 2, 3, and 4 cm; and the specimens' notch angles varied as 0°, 45° and 90°. Similar semi-circular gypsum specimens were also prepared each contained one edge notch with angles 0° or 45°. The uniaxial testing machine was used to perform the experimental tests for both NBD and SCB gypsum specimens. At the same time, the numerical simulation of these tests were performed by PFC2D. The experimental results showed that the failure mechanism of rocks is mainly affected by the orientations of joints with respect to the loading directions. The failure mechanism and fracturing patterns of the gypsum specimens are directly related to the final failure loading. It has been shown that the number of induced tensile cracks showing the specimens' tensile behavior, and increases by decreasing the length and angle of joints. It should be noted that the fracture toughness of rocks' specimens obtained by NBD tests was higher than that of the SCB tests. The fracture toughness of rocks usually increases with the increasing of joints' angles but increasing the joints' lengths do not change the fracture toughness. The numerical solutions and the experimental results for both NDB and SCB tests give nearly similar fracture patterns during the loading process.

The rapid development of the construction industry in the world causes a rapid increase in the consumption of aggregate resources, which leads to the depletion of existing aggregate reserves. The use of recycled aggregate in the production of concrete and mortar may be a good solution to reduce the use of natural raw materials and to reduce demolition waste in the environment. In this study investigating the use of recycled aggregate in mortar production, mortar mixtures were produced by substituting 0%, 25%, 50% and 100% fine recycled aggregate (FRA) instead of natural aggregate. The effect of 20% and 40% fly ash (FA) substitutes on cement mortar performance was also investigated. Compressive and flexural strength, drying shrinkage, abrasion resistance, water absorption and capillary water absorption were investigated on the produced mortars. The increase in the use of FRA reduced the compressive and flexural strengths of mortars. While the capillarity coefficients, water absorption, rapid chloride permeability and drying shrinkage of the mortars increased with the increase in the use of FRA, the effect of the use of fly ash on the rate of increase remained lower. The increased use of FRA has improved abrasion resistance as well.