Benefits
Polypropylene and Nylon fibers can:
- Improve mix cohesion, improving pumpability over long distances
- Improve freeze-thaw resistance
- Improve resistance to explosive spalling in case of a severe fire
- Improve impact resistance
- Increase resistance to plastic shrinkage during curing
Steel fibers can:
- Improve structural strength
- Reduce steel reinforcement requirements
- Improve ductility
- Reduce crack widths and control the crack widths tightly, thus improving durability
- Improve impact– and abrasion–resistance
- Improve freeze-thaw resistance
Blends of both steel and polymeric fibers are often used in construction projects in order to combine the benefits of both products; structural improvements provided by steel fibers and the resistance to explosive spalling and plastic shrinkage improvements provided by polymeric fibers.
In certain specific circumstances, steel fiber can entirely replace traditional steel reinforcement bar ("rebar") in reinforced concrete. This is most common in industrial flooring but also in some other precasting applications. Typically, these are corroborated with laboratory testing to confirm that performance requirements are met. Care should be taken to ensure that local design code requirements are also met, which may impose minimum quantities of steel reinforcement within the concrete. There are increasing numbers of tunnelling projects using precast lining segments reinforced only with steel fibers.
Read more about this topic: Fiber-reinforced Concrete
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