Effect of polypropylene fibers on shrinkage and cracking of concretes

The effects of admixed polypropylene (PP) fibers on the drying shrinkage of hardened concrete are presented in this paper. Concrete mixtures made with Ordinary Portland cement (OPC) and OPC/Slag blended cements containing various volume fractions of PP fiber were tested. The results show small but consistently higher drying shrinkages in concretes incorporating PP fibers than that without fiber. The effect is more pronounced in slag concretes and in concretes cured for only 1 day. An attempt to explain this phenomenon was made by water loss, nitrogen adsorption, sorptivity and scanning electron microscopy tests on the same concretes. Additional moisture loss and porosity are proposed as possible reasons. The results of early-age restrained shrinkage tests on slag concretes show that PP fiber concrete had higher cracking tendency than the concrete without fiber. This was found to be due to higher shrinkage and elastic modulus of PP fiber concrete.