Bond of reinforcement in self-compacting steel-fibre-reinforced concrete

Crack control, one of the main benefits of using fibre reinforcement, depends to a large extent on the concrete-rebar bond. Pull-out tests of specimens with short embedment length were carried out and the results showed no effect from the fibres on the normalised bond-slip behaviour before peak load. After this, the fibre reinforcement provided extra confinement, changing the failure mode from splitting to pull-out failure. The test results were used to calibrate a finite-element bond model that considers both tangential stresses and stresses in the radial direction from the rebar. Splitting cracks may be thus considered in the finite-element analyses. The model proved to yield results in good agreement with the experimental results regarding failure mode, load-slip relation and splitting strains on the surfaces of the pull-out specimens. The analyses revealed that two types of action were active in the cracking process. In addition, the confinement effect of the fibre reinforcement was compared with the confinement of conventional stirrups using the bond model in CEB-FIP model code 2010.