• Advances in concrete construction
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• v.12 no.6
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• pp.451-459
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• 2021

The mechanical behaviors and chloride resistance performance of fiber reinforced cementitious composites (FRCC) with hybrid polyethylene (PE) and steel fiber (in total 2% by volume) were investigated. Based on micro-mechanics and fracture mechanics, the reason why the tensile strain capacity of FRCC changed obviously was obtained. Besides, the effects of the total surface area of fiber in FRCC on compressive strength and chloride content were clarified. It is found that the improvement of the tensile strain capacity of FRCC with hybrid fiber is attributed to the growth of strain-hardening performance index (the ratio of complementary energy to crack tip toughness). As the total surface area of fiber related with the interfacial transition zone (ITZ) between fiber and matrix increases, compressive strength decreases obviously. Since the total surface area of fiber is small, the chloride resistance performance of FRCC with hybrid PE and steel fiber is better than that of FRCC containing only PE fiber.

• Advances in concrete construction
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• v.12 no.6
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• pp.469-477
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• 2021

Keratin fibres are waste products of the poultry industry. Natural materials made from chicken feather fibres (CFFs) are used in concrete-reinforced composites in this study. Brittleness is a major problem of high-strength concrete (HSC) that leads to sudden failure at the ultimate capacity of concrete. Hence, this work aims to investigate effects of using CFFs on improving the brittle behaviour of HSC. Two scenarios are performed to analyse the effectiveness of using CFFs. HSC containing different ratios of CFF (0% as the control, 0.5%, 1%, 1.5%, 2%, and 3%) by volume are tested in the first scenario. Glass fibres (GF) are used to replace CFFs in the other scenario. Tests of fresh, hardened and morphological properties for concrete are performed. Results showed the enhanced brittle behaviour of HSC when using both types of fibres. The preferable ratio of both types of fibres is 1% by volume. Flexural and splitting tensile strengths increased by about 44.9 % and 42.65 % for mixes containing 0.1% GF, respectively. While they were increased by about 21.6 % and 21.16 % for mixes containing 0.1% CFF, respectively.

• Advances in concrete construction
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• v.12 no.5
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• pp.411-418
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• 2021

Roller compacted concrete (RCC) used in the island reef airport runway will be subjected to the coupling actions of the fatigue impacts and the salt spray cycles, which will accelerate the deterioration of runway concrete and even threaten the flight safety. A cyclic impact testing machine and a climatic chamber were used to simulate the low-velocity fatigue impact and the salt spray cycles, respectively. The physical properties, the microstructures and the porosity of RCC were investigated. The results show the flexural strength firstly increases and then decreases with the increase of the fatigue impacts and the salt spray cycles. However, the decrease in the flexural strength is significantly earlier than the compressive strength of RCC only subjected to the salt spray cycles. The chlorine, sulfur and magnesium elements significantly increase in the pores of RCC subjected to 30000 fatigue impacts and 300 salt spray cycles, which causes the decrease in the porosity of RCC. The coupling effects of the fatigue impacts and the salt spray cycles in the later period accelerates the deterioration of RCC.

• Advances in concrete construction
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• v.12 no.5
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• pp.419-427
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• 2021

The overuse level of cement for civil industry has several undesirable social and ecological consequences. Substitution of cement with industrial wastes, called by-products, such as fly ash, ground granulated blast furnace slag, silica fume, metakaoline, rice husk ash, etc. as the mineral admixtures offers various advantages such as technical, economical and environmental which are very important in the era of sustainability in construction industry. The paper presents the experimental investigations for assessing the mechanical properties of the concrete made using the Pozzolanic waste materials (supplementary cementitious materials) such as fly ash and silica fume as the cement replacing materials. These materials were used in eight trial mixes with varying amount of ordinary Portland cement. These SCMs were kept in equal proportions in all the eight trial mixes. The chemical admixture (High Range Water Reducing Admixture) was also added to improve the workability of concrete. The compressive strengths for 7, 28, 40 and 90 days curing were evaluated whereas the flexural and tensile strengths corresponding to 7, 28 and 40 days curing were evaluated. The study corroborates that the Pozzolanic materials used in the present investigation as partial replacement for cement can render the sustainable concrete which can be used in the rigid pavement construction.

• Advances in concrete construction
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• v.12 no.6
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• pp.499-505
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• 2021

Geopolymer binders fascinate the attention of researchers as a replacement to cement binder in conventional concrete. One-ton production of cement releases one ton of carbon-dioxide in the atmosphere. In the replacement of cement by geopolymer material, there are two advantages: one is the reduction of CO₂ in the atmosphere, second is the utilization of Fly ash and Ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBFS) are by-products from coal and steel industries. This paper focuses on the mechanical properties of steel fiber reinforced geopolymer concrete. The framework considered in this research work is geopolymer source (Fly ash, GGBFS and crimped steel fibre) and alkaline activator which consists of NaOH and Na₂SiO₃ of molarity 8M. Here the Na₂SiO₃ / NaOH ratio was taken as 2.5. The variables considered in this experimental work include Binder content (360,420 and 450 kg/m³), the proportion of Fly ash and GGBS (70-30, 60-40 and 50-50) for three different grades of Geopolymer concrete (GPC) GPC 20, GPC 40 and GPC 60. The percentage of crimped steel fibres was varied as 0.1%, 0.2%, 0.3%, 0.4% and 0.5%. Generally, the inclusion of steel fibres increases the flexural and split tensile strength of Geopolymer concrete. The optimum dosage of steel fibres was found to be 0.4% (by volume fraction).

• Advances in concrete construction
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• v.12 no.6
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• pp.507-515
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• 2021

To evaluate the influence of slag on the alkalinity of pore solution and microstructure of concrete, this paper performs a leaching experiment on hardened cement-slag pastes (HCSP) slice specimens with different slag content in purified water. The pH value of pore solution, average porosity, morphology, phase composition and Ca/Si of HCSP specimens in the leaching process are measured by solid-liquid extraction, saturated-dried weighing, scanning electron microscopy-energy dispersive spectrometry (SEM-EDS) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). Results shows that the addition of slag can mitigate an increase in porosity and a decrease in Ca/Si of HCSP in the leaching process. Besides, an appropriate slag content can improve the microstructure so as to obtain the optimum leaching resistance of HCSP, which can guarantee the suitable alkalinity of pore solution to prevent a premature corrosion of reinforced bar. The optimum slag content is 40% in HCSP with a water-binder ratio of 0.45, and an excessive slag causes a significant decrease in the alkalinity of pore solution, resulting in a loss of protection on reinforced bar in HCSP.

• Advances in concrete construction
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• v.12 no.6
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• pp.517-525
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• 2021

More underground structures are increasingly being constructed such as box culverts for electric power transmission, and the life extension of these structures is very important. It is well known that the steel embedded in concrete is usually invulnerable to corrosion because the high alkalinity of the pore solution in concrete generates a thin protective oxide layer on the surface of the steel. Recent observations in the field and experimental evidence have shown that even steel in concrete can be corroded through the carbonation reaction of cover concrete. Carbonation-induced corrosion in concrete may often occur in a high carbon dioxide environment. In this study, the risk of carbonation of underground box culverts in Korea was evaluated by measuring the car¬bonation rate and concrete cover depth in the field. Then, the carbonation-free service life for the cover depth of the steel was calcu¬lated with in situ information and Monte Carlo simulation. Additionally, an accelerated carbonation test for a cracked beam specimen was performed, and the effect of a crack on the service life of a box culvert was numerically investigated with Monte Carlo simulation based on experimental results.

• Advances in concrete construction
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.307-313
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• 2022

This paper performs an experimental study on the flexural behavior of preloaded reinforced self-compacted concrete beams strengthened with carbon fiber reinforced polymers CFRP. A group of six preloaded strengthened beams was investigated along with one unstrengthened beam used as a reference beam RB. All beams have the same dimensions and reinforcement details: three beams are strengthened with CFRP laminates against flexural failure and three beams are strengthened with CFRP sheets. For simulating actual conditions, the beams are loaded before strengthening. Then, after strengthening, the beams are tested for flexural strength using 4-point loads where cracked and ultimate load and failure mode, along with load-deflection relation are recorded. To study the different configurations of strengthening, one layer, two layers, and U-wrap formation of laminates and sheets are considered. The results show that strengthing the RC beams using CFRP is an effective method to increase the beam's capacity by 47% up to 153% where deflection is reduced by 5%-80%. So, the beams strengthened with CFRP laminates have higher load capacity and lower ductility in comparison with the beams strengthened with CFRP sheets.

• Advances in concrete construction
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.101-111
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• 2022

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.

• Advances in concrete construction
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.327-337
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• 2022

This paper is concerned with the vibration analysis of middle layer cylindrical shell made of functionally graded material. The outer layers and inner layer are composed of functionally graded and isotropic material respectively. The Rayleigh Ritz method is applied to solve the presented shell dynamics equations. Two configurations are constructed with layers distributions. Fundamental natural frequencies of the three layered cylindrical shell is plotted against the circumferential wave number with different power law exponents. The frequency decreases with the increase of power law exponent. The fundamental natural frequencies first decreases and fall down to its minimum value, after frequencies increases with circumferential wave number. This is due to change in the magnitude of extensional and bending energies of the cylindrical shells. The computer software MATLAB has been employed for the computation of presented frequencies and tested the results obtained in order to assess the accuracy and validity of the cylindrical shell model for predicting the vibration frequencies of cylindrical shell.