Discrete steel fibres can increase significantly the bending and the shear resistance of concrete structural elements when Steel Fibre Reinforced Concrete (SFRC) is designed in such a way that fibre reinforcing mechanisms are optimized. To assess the fibre reinforcement effectiveness in shallow structural elements failing in bending and in shear, experimental and numerical research were performed. Uniaxial compression and bending tests were executed to derive the constitutive laws of the developed SFRC. Using a cross-section layered model and the material constitutive laws, the deformational behaviour of structural elements failing in bending was predicted from the moment-curvature relationship of the representative cross sections. To evaluate the influence of the percentage of fibres on the shear resistance of shallow structures, three point bending tests with shallow beams were performed. The applicability of the formulation proposed by RILEM TC 162-TDF for the prediction of the shear resistance of SFRC elements was evaluated. Inverse analysis was adopted to determine indirectly the values of the fracture mode I parameters of the developed SFRC. With these values, and using a softening diagram for modelling the crack shear softening behaviour, the response of the SFRC beams failing in shear was predicted.

Post earthquake fire (PEF) can lead to the collapse of buildings that are partially damaged in a prior ground-motion that occurred immediately before the fire. The majority of standards and codes for the design of structures against earthquake ignore the possibility of PEF and thus buildings designed with those codes could be too weak when subjected to a fire after an earthquake. An investigation based on sequential analysis inspired by FEMA356 is performed here on the Life-Safety performance level of structures designed to the ACI 318-08 code after they are subjected to two different earthquake levels with PGA of 0.35 g and 0.25 g. This is followed by a four-hour fire analysis of the weakened structure, from which the time it takes for the weakened structure to collapse is calculated. As a benchmark, the fire analysis is also performed for undamaged structure and before occurrence of earthquake. The results show that the vulnerability of structures increases dramatically when a previously damaged structure is exposed to PEF. The results also show the damaging effects of post earthquake fire are exacerbated when initiated from second and third floor. Whilst the investigation is for a certain class of structures (regular building, intermediate reinforced structure, 3 stories), the results confirm the need for the incorporation of post earthquake fire in the process of analysis and design and provides some quantitative measures on the level of associated effects.

Upon completion of new concrete structures, the achieved construction quality always shows a high scatter and variability, and in severe environments, any weaknesses and deficiencies will soon be revealed whatever durability specifications and materials have been applied. To a certain extent, a probability approach to the durability design can take the high scatter and variability into account. However, numerical solutions alone are not sufficient to ensure the durability and service life of concrete structures in severe environments. In the present paper, the basis for a probability-based durability design is briefly outlined and discussed. As a result, some performance-based durability requirements are specified which are used for quality control and quality assurance during concrete construction. The final documentation of achieved construction quality and compliance with the specified durability are key to any rational approach to more controlled and increased durability. As part of the durability design, a service manual for future condition assessment and preventive maintenance of the structure is also produced. It is such a service manual which helps provide the ultimate basis for achieving a more controlled durability and service life of the given concrete structure in the given environment.

Electrical resistivity is a property associated with both the physical and chemical characteristics of concrete. It allows the evaluation of the greater or lesser difficulty with which aggressive substances penetrate the concrete's core before the dissolution of the passive film process and the consequent reinforcement's corrosion begin. This work addresses the capillary absorption of self-compacting concrete (SCC) with various types and contents of additions, correlating it with its electrical resistivity. To that effect, binary and ternary mixes of SCC were produced using fly ashes (FA) and limestone filler (LF). A total of 11 self-compactable mixes were produced: one with cement (C) only; three with C + FA in 30%, 60% and 70% substitution ratios; three with C + LF in 30%, 60% and 70% substitution ratios; four with C + FA + LF in combinations of 10-20%, 20-10%, 20-40% and 40-20% substitution ratios, respectively; and four reference mixes according to the LNEC E 464 specification, which refers to the NP EN 206-1 norm. The evaluation of the capillarity of the mixes produced was made through the determination of the water absorption by capillarity coefficient according to the LNEC E 393 specification. The electrical resistivity was evaluated using the European norm proposal presented by the EU-Project CHLORTEST (EU funded research Project under 5FP GROWTH programme) and based on the RILEM TC-154 EMC technical recommendation. The results indicate that SCC's capillarity is strongly conditioned by the type and quantity of the additions used. It was found that FA addition significantly improves some of the properties studied especially at older ages.

Prior concrete strength distributions can be updated by using direct information from test results as well as by taking into account indirect information due to conformity control. Due to the filtering effect of conformity control, the distribution of the material property in the accepted inspected lots will have lower fraction defectives in comparison to the distribution of the entire production (before or without inspection). A methodology is presented to quantify this influence in a Bayesian framework based on prior knowledge with respect to the hyperparameters of concrete strength distributions. An algorithm is presented in order to update prior distributions through numerical integration, taking into account the operating characteristic of the applied conformity criteria, calculated based on Monte Carlo simulations. Different examples are given to derive suitable hyperparameters for incoming strength distributions of concrete offered for conformity assessment, using updated available prior information, maximum-likelihood estimators or a bootstrap procedure. Furthermore, the updating procedure based on direct as well as indirect information obtained by conformity assessment is illustrated and used to quantify the filtering effect of conformity criteria on concrete strength distributions in case of a specific set of conformity criteria.

The applicability of limit analysis methods in design and assessment of concrete structures generally requires a certain plastic deformation capacity. The latter is primarily provided by the ductility of the reinforcement, being additionally affected by the bond properties between reinforcing steel and concrete since they provoke strain localization in the reinforcement at cracks. The bond strength of reinforcing bars is not only governed by concrete quality, but also by construction details such as bar ribbing, bar spacing or concrete cover thickness. For new concrete structures, a potentially unfavorable impact on bond strength can easily be anticipated through appropriate code rules on construction details. In existing structures, these requirements may not be necessarily satisfied, consequently requiring additional considerations. This two-part paper investigates in a theoretical study the impacts of the most frequently encountered construction details which may not satisfy design code requirements on bond strength, steel strain localization and plastic deformation capacity of cracked structural concrete. The first part introduces basic considerations on bond, strain localization and plastic deformation capacity as well as the fundamentals of the Tension Chord Model underlying the further investigations. It also analyzes the impacts of the hardening behavior of reinforcing steel and concrete quality. The second part discusses the impacts of construction details (bar ribbing, bar spacing, and concrete cover thickness) and of additional structure-specific features such as bar diameter and crack spacing.