Construction and Building Materials 24 (2010) 559–565

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Construction and Building Materials

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/conbuildmat

Experimental and numerical analysis on effect of fibre aspect ratio

on mechanical properties of SRFC
Z.L. Wang a,*, J. Wu b, J.G. Wang c
a
Department of Geotechnical Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, China
b
Tongke College, Tongji University, Shanghai 200070, China
c
School of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Based on experimental results, this paper firstly evaluates the effect of fibre aspect ratio (length-to-diam-
Received 19 May 2009 eter) on mechanical characteristics of steel fibre reinforced concrete (SFRC). Analysis reveals that the
Received in revised form 5 August 2009 aspect ratio has an optimal value for strengths in every concrete batch. Beyond this value, the addition
Accepted 28 September 2009
of steel fibres into concrete may have an effect of increasing the ductility rather than the strengths. Sub-
Available online 27 October 2009
sequently, crater and perforation in two SFRC targets by a steel projectile are numerically simulated
based on erosion algorithm. The effective stress and effective plastic strain are tabulated to model the
Keywords:
softening behavior due to post-yield damage. Numerical results show that the hydrodynamic model is
SFRC
Aspect ratio
able to describe the responses of SFRC under impact loading. Besides, higher aspect ratio of fibres can
Damage softening absorb more energy, causing smaller craters in SFRC target and lower residual velocity of the projectile.
Crater Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Residual velocity

1. Introduction
Concrete is a widely used building material in the world but it is
inclined to exhibit extensive cracking and undergoes brittle failure
under static or dynamic loading [1–3]. Now, it is well documented
that the fibres added to concrete can substantially improve many
of its engineering properties such as tensile strength, flexural
strength, fracture toughness, resistance to fatigue, impact and ther-
mal shock. Large ranges of fibres may be added into concrete: steel,
glass, carbon, wood, synthetic, natural, and so on [4,5]. Each type of
fibres is chosen in function of the property aimed at. The present
study will only consider steel fibrous concrete.
As well known, debonding and pulling out the fibres from con-
crete matrix require more energy, thus substantially increasing
SFRC toughness (area under the stress–strain curve) and resistance
to dynamic loading. Such a property makes SFRC have various
applications in the last couple of decades like mine and tunnel lin-
ings, airport runways, dam constructions, fire protection coatings,
civil defense fortifications, and even in conventional reinforced
concrete frames [2,3,6].
According to Zollo [7], the effect of the fibres lays more in the
nature of energy absorption and crack control than in an increased
load transfer capacity. In addition, the efficiency of fibres depends
on the fibre features such as their volume fraction, aspect ratio,
* Corresponding author. Fax: +86 2165985210.
E-mail address: cvewzL@tongji.edu.cn (Z.L. Wang).
shape, distribution and so on [1,3], among which the volume frac-
tion is basic for all SFRC related topics. So far, various fibres such as
long-straight shape, hooked end shape and the crimped shape have
been investigated by experimental and numerical methods [3,8–
10]. Lataste et al. [11] characterized the influence of fibre spatial
distribution by using electrical resistivity measurements. Although
quite an amount of work has been done on the behaviors of steel
fibrous concrete, the effect of fibre aspect ratio and the effect of
post-yield damage softening behavior on the mechanical features
of SFRC have not been well addressed under impact loading [4,9].
In general, the effectiveness of fibres added to concrete can be
investigated by experimental and numerical methods. For exam-
ple, the routine laboratory testing methods are impact test (drop
weight type), compressive test (MTS and SHPB), tensile test (split-
ting tension and uniaxial tension) as well as flexural test (3-point
beam loading), and so on. As well known, the field full-scale tests
(see, for example, blast and penetration) to evaluate the perfor-
mance of SFRC structures are often beyond affordability. With
the rapid development of computer technology and the advance-
ment of software techniques, numerical simulation of structural
responses to static or dynamic loading has become feasible
[4,12,13]. However, a valid constitutive equation to fundamentally
express the characteristics of SFRC material behavior is crucial and
expected.
The main objectives of this paper are, firstly, to evaluate the re-
lated test results about the effect of fibre aspect ratio on SFRC, and
secondly, to numerically simulates the crater and perforation in

0950-0618/$ - see front matter Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2009.09.009
560 Z.L. Wang et al. / Construction and Building Materials 24 (2010) 559–565

SFRC targets by steel projectile based on erosion algorithm. Partic- hammer was dropped repeatedly and the numbers of blows required to produce
the first visible crack in the specimen and for the ultimate failure were recorded.
ularly, the constitutive model and high pressure equation of state
The ultimate failure was assumed to have reached when the crack, which initiated
(EOS) for SFRC are also focused. from bottom, propagated up to the top surface of the test specimen. The numbers of
blows were obtained for SFRC containing 1.0%, 1.5% and 2.0% volume fractions of
2. Evaluation of experimental results fibres, respectively. They are plotted in Fig. 1b and c. Clearly, the specimen with
higher aspect ratio of fibres (dL ¼ 40) has stronger energy-absorption capacity,
For the evaluation of the impact resistance of SFRC, Mohammadi et al. [9] con- resulting in a larger number of blows whether for initial crack or for the ultimate
ducted a drop weight type test (Fig. 1a), in which the specimens were broken by failure. Besides, an increase is observed in the number of blows (i.e. strengths) as
known weight (5.54 kg) hammer dropped from a known height of 457 mm. The the volume fraction of fibres increases.
Bayramov et al. [10] performed a compression and splitting tensile test for SFRC
specimens. The results are shown in Fig. 2. Both the compressive and tensile
strengths increase as the fibre aspect ratio increases from 55 to 65. However, they de-
clines instead when dL rises from 65 to 80. It turns out that when the aspect ratio ex-
ceeds a certain value, the addition of steel fibres into concrete may have an effect of
increasing the ductility rather than the strengths. A careful examination of the post-
test specimens indicates that, along the fracture plane, the opening and propagation
of the crack are well controlled by the added steel fibres. During the crack propaga-
tion, some fibres were broken and some of them were drawn out from the concrete
matrix. In most cases, the fibres with the aspect ratio of 55 and 65 did not break but
were pulled out. However, the fibres with the aspect ratio of 80 were broken into two
parts. Besides, it is found from the result plots that on increasing the volume fraction
of fibres, both the compressive and tensile strengths of SFRC increase.
Yan et al. [14] conducted an experimental study of SFRC specimens on split
Hopkinson pressure bar (SHPB). As schematically shown in Fig. 3a, this device
works on the principle of one-dimensional wave propagation. The deformation his-
Cushion block
(a) Schematic of drop weight type impact test. 80
l/d=55
10 l/d=65
l/d=40 75
l/d=80
l/d=20
9 70

65
8
Number ofblows

σ c (MPa)

60
7
55

6 50

45
5

40
4 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7
0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 2 2.2
Vf (%)
Vf (%)
(a) Relationship of compressive strength and volume fraction.
(b) First crack impact resistance of SFRC.
8
70 l/d=55
l/d=40 l/d=65
l/d=20 l/d=80
60 7.5

50
7
σ (MPa)
Number of blows

40
f

6.5

30

6
20

5.5
10 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7
0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 2 2.2
V (%) Vf (%)
f
(c) Failure impact resistance of SFRC. (b) Relationship of splitting tensile strength and volume fraction.
Fig. 1. Drop weight test and experimental results Mohammadi et al. [9]. Fig. 2. Results of compressive and splitting tests Bayramov et al. [10].
 Z.L. Wang et al. / Construction and Building Materials 24 (2010) 559–565 561

(a) Configuration of the Split Hopkinson pressur bar

120
l/d=20
l/d=60
100

80
σ(MPa)

60

40

20

0
0 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04
ε
(b) σ ~ ε curve of SFRC.
Fig. 3. SHPB test and experimental results Yan et al. [14].

tory of the specimen is extracted from the signals in the strain gauges mounted on
the incident and transmission bars. Analysis is accomplished by referencing the
three signals (two, the incident and reflected waves, in the incident bar; and one,
the transmitted wave, in the transmission bar) to the same instant of time. From
Fig. 3b, it is easy to see that when the volume fraction is fixed, the fibre aspect ratio
exerts significant influence on the stress–strain plots and material properties. Com-
pared to smaller aspect ratio (dL ¼ 20), the peak strain and toughness increase mark-
edly but the compressive strength and elastic modulus (slope of initial straight line)
decrease for the larger aspect ratio (dL ¼ 60) case.
As a summary, the effect of aspect ratio on mechanical properties of SFRC is sig-
nificant and there exists an optimal value for strength indexes in each concrete
batch.
3. Constitutive model and EOS for materials
‘‘Johnson–Holmquist-Concrete Model” and ‘‘Brittle Damage Model”,
etc. [15]. These models are beneficial to explore the mechanical
characteristics of concrete, but the damage softening behavior in
post-yield stage cannot be well handled. Besides, those models in-
volve too many parameters to be determined by simple material
tests. Remarkably, the elastic–plastic hydrodynamic model (mate-
rial Type 10 in LS-DYNA) is applicable to a wide range of materials,
including those with pressure dependent yield behaviors [12]. This
model can be simplified as a bilinear elastoplastic stress–strain
relationship for most of the engineering materials. The yield
strength, ry, is a function of the effective plastic strain, ep , and
the plastic hardening modulus, Eh, which is expressed as:

The common hydrocode such as LS-DYNA [12,15]and ABAQUS

ry ¼ r0 þ Eh ep ð1Þ
[13] treats stresses and strains separately in volumetric and devia-
toric portions. The deviatoric portion is governed by a strength If the tabulated data curve, as shown in Fig. 4 is given to estab-
model. The volumetric portion is always described by an equation lish the relationship between the effective stress r  and the effec-
of state (EOS) which determines the relationship between the tive plastic strain ep , the value for f ðep Þ is found by interpolation
hydrostatic pressure, the local density and the local energy. from the data curve as [12,15]:

3.1. Constitutive model

ry ¼ f ðep Þ ð2Þ
As well known, LS-DYNA has several built-in concrete models In this case, the parameter Eh in Eq. (1) is no longer required for
designed for special purposes such as ‘‘Concrete Damage Model”, input during calculations.
562 Z.L. Wang et al. / Construction and Building Materials 24 (2010) 559–565

σ structures subjected to high strain-rate loading. For example, an

erosion algorithm can be adopted to solve the excessive element
distortion problem and to model the fracture and failure of engi-
neering material [15]. An element is immediately deleted when
σy the material response in the element exceeds certain critical value.
The deletion process is irreversible, and the deleted material will
not be able to offer further resistance [18,19].
A variety of criteria can be used to govern the ‘‘erosion’’ of the
material. In the present work, following two erosion criteria, ten-
Nonlinear softening sile cut-off and shear strain, have been incorporated into the calcu-
lation code [12,15,19]:

rt P ft ð8Þ
c P cmax ð9Þ

where rt denotes tensile stress, c is shear strain, ft and cmax are the
critical values for tensile cut-off and the shear strain at failure,
0 εp respectively.
These two erosion criteria correspond to material tensile frac-
Fig. 4. Effective stress and effective plastic strain. ture and compression–shear failure, respectively. Their critical val-
ues can be determined by the calibration against experimental
data for a specified situation [19].
It can be seen from Fig. 4 that yield stress ry is a nonzero when
the plastic strain is zero. Effective stress is defined in terms of the
deviatoric stress tensor sij as: 5. Simulation of penetration of SFRC target
  1
3 2
The normal impact of a cylindrical steel projectile at velocity of
r ¼ sij sij ð3Þ
1500 m/s on SFRC targets is considered herein. This demonstrates
2
the performance of the proposed model and explores the effect
and effective plastic strain by: of fibre aspect ratio on the failure process of SFRC.
Z t 1 The dimensions of the SFRC targets are 400 mm 
2 p p 2
ep ¼ e_ ij e_ ij dt ð4Þ 400 mm  60 mm, and the geometry of the cylindrical projectile
0 3
features a length of 43.0 mm and a diameter of 15.0 mm. Two SFRC
where t denotes time, e_ pij is the plastic strain rate.
The damage softening behavior of SFRC is modelled by the tab-
ulated stress–strain curve as shown in Fig. 4 [4,15].

3.2. High pressure EOS

In this study, the Gruneisen EOS [12,16,17] with cubic shock

velocity-particle velocity (D–up) defines pressure for compressed
materials as:
   
q0 C 20 l 1 þ 1  c20 l  2b l2
P¼h
2 3
i2 þ ðc0 þ blÞE ð5Þ
1  ðS1  1Þl  S2 llþ1  S3 ðllþ1Þ2

and for expanded materials by:

Fig. 5. Finite element mesh for SFRC target and projectile.
P ¼ q0 C 20 l þ ðc0 þ blÞE ð6Þ

where the standard volumetric strain is l ¼ qq  1 for current den-

0 Table 1
sity q and initial density q0; C0 is the intercept of the D–up curve; S1, Material parameters used in calculations.
S2 and S3 are the coefficients of the slope of the D–up curve; c0 is the
l l
Gruneisen gamma; b is the first-order volume correction to c0. d
¼ 20 d
¼ 60
It is well recognized that for most materials, shock velocity Us Density
varies linearly with respect to the particle velocity up [17] as: q0 (g/cm3) 2.55 2.55
Elastic constants
U s ¼ C 0 þ S1 up ð7Þ
E (GPa) 45.67 28.40
v 0.25 0.22
If the second-order and higher terms are negligible, the parameters
S2 and S3 in Eq. (5) are taken as zeros. Strength constants
ry (MPa) 94.5 82.01
rc (MPa) 105.00 95.00
4. Numerical tool and erosion algorithm ft (MPa) 15.75 14.30
cmax 0.4 0.4
Numerical investigations in the present study are performed by Pressure constants
using LS-DYNA, which is especially developed for nonlinear dy- C0 (m/s) 3455.6 2575.1
S1 1.50 1.50
namic simulations. In recent years, many efforts have been devoted
c0 2.0 2.0
to developing reliable algorithms for a more realistic analysis of
 Z.L. Wang et al. / Construction and Building Materials 24 (2010) 559–565 563

targets containing different aspect ratios (20 and 60) of steel fibres The stress–strain curves for the two SFRC targets are illustrated
were used for a comparative study. Because of symmetry, one in Fig. 3b, and the material parameters are listed in Table 1 [14].
quarter of the target and projectile was modelled using 109,080 Due to lack of data, the tensile strengths of both targets were taken
quadrilateral elements (108,000 for the target and 1080 for the as 15% of their compressive ones [1]. Table 2 gives sixteen pairs
projectile) and 116,868 nodes, thus two symmetry planes were de- data of effective stress r
 and effective plastic strain ep to character-
fined and the other two boundaries were fixed (see Fig. 5). The FE- ize the post-yield damage softening behavior. The projectile was
model was generated with the pre-processor ANSYS [20]. assumed to be elastic-perfectly plastic with the following proper-
ties: mass density = 7.83 g/cm3, Young’s modulus = 207.0 GPa,
Poisson’s ratio = 0.3 and yield stress = 500.0 MPa.
Table 2 Fig. 6 presents the three-dimensional deformed mesh plots of
r  ep data for describing damage softening. the steel projectile into the concrete targets at t = 30 ls. This plot
l l
was actually formed by mirroring the FEM domain along its sym-
d
¼ 20 d
¼ 60
metry axis to the left side of the domain. Since its strength is higher
ep r (MPa) ep r (MPa) in compression than in tension, SFRC target experiences brittle ten-
1 0.0000 94.50 0.0000 82.01 sile fracture firstly, followed by compression/shear failure. With
2 0.0001 101.98 0.0008 91.38 the movement of the projectile, both tensile and compressive dam-
3 0.0003 105.00 0.0017 94.97
ages begin to evolve. The compressive stress is reflected at exit sur-
4 0.0006 101.96 0.0028 89.89
5 0.0014 85.87 0.0043 77.75 face, generating a tensile stress wave. The element is eroded
6 0.0023 67.99 0.0057 65.09 (deleted) once the tensile stress or the shear strain reaches the pre-
7 0.0031 53.68 0.0071 54.35 set critical values. Thus, spalling grows and expands continually
8 0.0039 43.16 0.0084 45.82 until the penetration course stops. The crater and tunnel expansion
9 0.0045 35.48 0.0096 39.15
10 0.0051 29.80 0.0108 33.92
phases can be accordingly identified in the two targets.
11 0.0063 22.18 0.0120 29.76 From Table 1 and Fig. 3a, compared with the dL ¼ 60 case, SFRC
12 0.0080 15.70 0.0142 23.68 with dL ¼ 20 has higher compressive strength and larger elastic
13 0.0101 11.11 0.0163 19.51 modulus as well as a marginal increase in the peak stress. How-
14 0.0150 6.90 0.0184 16.52
ever, for the SFRC with dL ¼ 60, an appreciable increase in peak
15 0.0200 4.63 0.0205 14.28
16 0.0240 3.66 0.0240 12.56 strain and substantially higher toughness can be noticed. As well
known, toughness is a measure standard of the capacity of energy

Fig. 6. Comparison of penetration craters at t = 30 ls.

564 Z.L. Wang et al. / Construction and Building Materials 24 (2010) 559–565

absorption and crack control, and importantly affects the impact 1500
resistance. The SFRC target containing dL ¼ 20 fibres has a larger l/d=20
crater, on either the front or the exit surface, than the target with 1490 l/d=60
L
d
¼ 60 (see Figs. 6 and 7). This shows that a larger aspect ratio of
fibres can effectively arrest the propagation of cracks and has bet- 1480
ter resistance to dynamic loading.

Bullet velocity (m/s)

The kinetic energy of projectile is partly dissipated in impact 1470
and perforation. After completely penetrating the target, the pro-
jectile leaves the target at a constant velocity, called the residual 1460
velocity [19]. Fig. 8 compares the typical history of velocities for
the two penetration cases. It can be seen that for the fibre aspect 1450
ratio of 20, the velocity of projectile becomes stabilized quickly
whereas for the dL ¼ 60 case, the velocity of the projectile slowly de- 1440
clines until the target is perforated and tends towards stability at
0.04 ms. Their residual velocities are 1454 and 1441, respectively. 1430
The higher residual velocity for the case of dL ¼ 20 can be explained
from Figs. 6a and 7a. It is noticed that although the material prop- 1420
erties (compressive strength and elastic modulus) of SFRC with 0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1
smaller fibre aspect ratio are higher, a larger crater can be found Time (ms)
on the exit surface of target due to lower toughness. When the Fig. 8. Comparison of projectile velocities for two SFRC targets.
shock front traveling ahead of the projectile meets the exit surface,
many cracks are initiated and the projectile easily pushes away the
scabbing part with the less resistance, resulting in a larger residual These results indicate that the numerical tool presented is con-
velocity. It further illustrates that SFRC containing lower aspect ducive to the impact analysis of SFRC, especially for designers of ci-
ratio possesses smaller energy-absorption and crack-arrest vil defense structures and airport runways as well as the weapon
capacities. manufacturer.

Fig. 7. Comparison of penetration craters at t = 60 ls.

 Z.L. Wang et al. / Construction and Building Materials 24 (2010) 559–565
6. Conclusions
SFRC is a new material allowing innovative projects for concrete
structures. Fibres added to concrete can significantly improve the
toughness, ductility and resistance of concrete to impact and pen-
etration. Based on the evaluation of the experimental data and
numerical analyses, the following conclusions may be drawn:
(1) Aspect ratio of fibres exerts an important influence on the
mechanical properties of SFRC. It is found that an optimal
aspect ratio of fibres exists for the SFRC strengths. Beyond
the value, the addition of steel fibres into concrete may
cause a increase in the toughness rather than the strengths.
(2) The elastic–plastic hydrodynamic model is effective for
characterizing principal features of SFRC, whereby the
post-yield damage softening behavior can be considered rea-
sonably well. The simulations of SFRC targets penetrated by
projectile indicate that the adoption of two erosion criteria is
feasible and has superior performance in terms of capturing
the shear and tension failures.
(3) Although the higher fibre aspect ratio may induce lower
compressive strength and elastic modulus, the toughness
and peak strain of SFRC increase, which lead to more energy
absorption and better crack control. A lower residual veloc-
ity of projectile and smaller penetration craters in SFRC with
higher aspect ratio of fibres are observed in our calculations.
Acknowledgements
This study was supported by NSFC_the Civil Aeronautics Joint
Research Foundation (Grant No. 60776821), the Program for New
Century Excellent Talents in University (Grant No. NCET-08-
0525), the Specialized Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of
Higher Education (Grant No. 20070358073) and the Talent Intro-
duction Foundation of Tongji University.
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