Australia finds many uses for steel-fiber-reinforced concrete

SFRC is cast in place, precast, and shotcreted

or more than 8 years, the use of s t e e l - f i b e r- re i n f o rced concrete (SFRC) in Australia has been growing 30 to 40 percent per year. Since an Australian manufacturer introduced enlarged-end steel fibers to the country in 1975, more than 30 ready mixed concrete companies have supplied SFRC. The material has been batched by more than 200 batch plants, both large automated city plants and small portable plants. It is now included in Aust ra l i as Swimming Pool Standard (AS2785) and its Septic Tank Standard (AS1546). Its inclusion in Aust ra l i as Concrete St ru c t u res Code (BD2) is being considered now also.

the concrete with standard concrete equipment. This makes it faster and easier to place than concrete reinforced with mesh or rebar. Its also cost-competitive with concrete reinforced with mesh or rebar. It resists impact and abrasion and it permits thinner sections, which reduce deadload and the amount of concrete needed. Slab thickness can be reduced by 30 to 40 percent.

Floors and roads

Because of its excellent resistance to impact and abrasion, SFRC originally was used only for heavy-duty floors and pavements. The Australian coal and ore mining industry uses a lot of SFRC for workshop floors, wash-down pads, and hard standing areas. The cotton industry uses it for storage sheds and gins. It also is used for pavements in container handling areas, bus parking lanes, roundabouts, heavy-duty factory floors, and slipformed slabs under railway tracks. Since these pro p ri e t a ry steel fibers were first introduced, the fiber manufacturer has developed three standard mixes for heavy-duty, light-duty, and residential uses. Because they contain fewer fibers, the light-duty and residential mixes cost less, making them economical for many other uses. Now they also are used for warehouse floors, tennis courts, and some residential floors. Though they arent used much in highway construction, they are used for roads with light to medium traffic, typically at 4- to 434inch thicknesses. The light-duty mix contains 105 pounds of steel fiber per cubic yard Because it resists impact and abrasion, SFRC is used in heavily loaded areas, such as container handling yards, bus parking lanes, roundabouts, bridge nosing joints, railroad track foundations, and factory floors. of concrete. It reaches a compressive strength of 5000 psi and a flexural strength of 800 psi. The fiber manufacturer recommends warehouse floor slabs be at least 4 inches thick. Thinner slabs are too difficult to place. At free edges and doweled or keyed joints, slabs should be thickened to 5 to 6 inches, with the underside sloped 1:10 from the main slab to the edge. Maximum joint spacing should be 50 feet for indoor slabs and 30 feet for outdoor slabs.

Why use steel fibers?

A ready mix supplier can batch the enlarged-end steel fibers directly into a transit mixer. No special dispensing equipment is required. Contractors can handle and finish

Toppings
SFRC is used in Australia for bonded, unbonded, and partially bonded toppings over deteriorated floors or pavements. Thick, unbonded SFRC toppings are placed over badly cracked slabs

A thin topping of SFRC can provide a new wearing surface for old timber floors.

Curing is required for 7 days. Partially bonded toppings are placed over cleaned slabs, without a bonding agent or a bondbreaker. Because the topping must withstand loads without relying on load transfer to the slab, it should be at least 2 inches thick. Joints in the topping must follow joints in the slab.

Below-grade walls
The Australian-made machine shown here digs a trench at the same time it casts a SFRC wall inside the trench. The machine can be used to cast basement walls, foundation walls, retaining walls, or canal revetment walls up to 10 12 inches thick and 14 feet deep. Guided by a laser beam, it can place concrete to within 316 inch of an existing building, with an accuracy of 532 inch over a distance of 440 yards. SFRC is crucial to the operation of the machine. Because concrete is pumped into a slipform attached to the back of the trencher, there is no access to install mesh or rebar.

Australian-made machine casts a SFRC foundation wall at the same time it digs a trench for the wall. Because concrete is pumped into a slipform attached to the back of the trencher, there is no access to install mesh or rebar. or slabs that must be leveled a large amount. A thin layer of sand or crushed stone is placed over the slab first to separate the topping from the original floor. This helps p re vent crack reflection and eliminates the need to match joints in the topping with joints in the slab. If too much headroom is lost because of this, plastic sheeting can be used as a bondbreaker instead. An unbonded topping must be at least 3 inches thick; 4 inches is common. To provide load transfer and to pre ve n t edge curling, joints must be doweled. Curing is important, as with any SFRC application. Thin, bonded SFRC toppings are placed over sound slabs with a worn or unlevel surface. Workshop floors, commercial floors, and bridge decks in Australia have all been resurfaced with bonded SFRC toppings. Thickness varies from 1.2 to 2.4 inches. Thicker toppings tend to debond due to curling or differential shrinkage. For a good bond, the existing concrete is scabbled then dampened with a bonding agent, such as a 1:1 sand-cement slurry. SFRC is then placed, vibrated, and finished with a power trowel. Joints in the base slab will reflect, so joints in the topping must coincide with them.

New swimming pools are built by shotcreting SFRC over the pool excavation; old pools are rehabilitated by shotcreting SFRC over the old concrete or tile. that are difficult to reinforce with rebar or mesh. A few precasters make composite building panels that consist of a lightweight concrete core sandwiched between exterior SFRC skins. Due to the lightweight core, the panels reportedly are easy to handle and erect. One such system for residential and commercial buildings is said to have excellent fire resistance and sound attenuation properties. A 4-inch-thick nonstructural panel achieved a 4-hour fire rating. When partially post-tensioned, this type of panel also can be used in load bearing situations. Precast panels for swimming pools were one of the first uses of precast SFRC in Australia. They cost less than laminated asbestos panels. The 34-inch-thick, 4-foot square panels are set in the concrete base and secured at the top with a reinforced or post-tensioned coping. A vinyl liner is placed over the concrete, so an off-form or hand-troweled finish is satisfactory. Panels usually are stack cast. The highstrength mortar contains 200 pounds of fiber per cubic yard and achieves flexural strengths of 1450 to 1750 psi. Full-size olympic pools have been built with these curved and flat precast SFRC panels.

Precast panels
SFRC is used to make difficult-tocast precast panels, such as thin panels, curved panels, or panels

Loadbearing U-shaped columns for a three-story building were precast using SFRC to overcome reinforcement placing problems.

Precast tanks
Approved by a state authority in 1983, SFRC septic tanks are now being formed and spun-cast. A trial 132-gallon septic tank with 34-inchthick spun-cast walls is in excellent condition after 8 years of service. In 1983, water tank manufacturers started using SFRC also. A 5800gallon cylindrical tank has a 3- to 4inch-thick base and walls that taper from 3 inches thick at the bottom to 2 inches at the top. A 1300-gallon spherical tank having walls l-inch thick was recently constructed as a prototype.

SFRC shotcrete. No special preparation is required; the SFRC is spra ye d directly onto the old concrete or tile surface. To accommodate shrinkage s t re s s e s, a compressible isolation joint is installed at the top between the old pool and the new SFRC lining.

But is SFRC durable?

In 1971, SFRC beams were placed in the tidal zone of the upper Sydney Harbor. Beams were removed, examined, and tested after 2 12, 5, and 10 years. All of these tests have shown that SFRC resists corrosion. Although spalling is common for reinforced concrete in sea water, none of the SFRC beams has spalled. One beam is still immersed and in good condition after 15 years. SFRC is durable because it generally has a strength of 5000 psi (or 5800 psi, where durability is a major concern). Water-cement ratio is normally below 0.5. The typical 3inch-slump mix can be compacted readily by normal procedures. According to the manufacturer of enlarged-end steel fibers, surface staining has been overstated. It occurs in salt water conditions, but its an aesthetic rather than a durability problem. Under normal urban conditions, it will be minimal or nonexistent. Staining that does occur will be localized and will not change the general appearance of the concrete. The surface can be painted or treated to prevent staining.

Shotcreting SFRC
In Australia, shotcreting of SFRC usually is done by the wet process. It is used for building walls, tunnel linings, embankment stabilization, repair of wharf piles, and construction and repair of swimming pools. The same enlarged-end steel fibers also are made in Oslo for wet-shotcreting tunnels in Scandinavia. For Australian residential construction, expanded polystyrene panels are set between studs and shotcreted on both sides with SFRC. Mesh laid over the pipe frame for a free form building also has been covered with SFRC shotcrete. SFRC is used to repair wharf piles by shotcreting the prepared surface or by pumping SFRC into waterproof socks placed around the deteriorated piles. Since 1983, more than 100 inground home swimming pools have been built with SFRC shotcrete. Walls usually are about 4 inches thick. Most do not contain mesh or rebar, except perhaps for some continuous reinforcement in the bond beam. Pools up to 56 feet long and 8 feet deep have been built in this way. Old pools are rehabilitated by lining the original shell with 3 inches of

Editors note This article is based on a paper by Winston A. Marsden, Technical Development Manager of AWI Fibresteel, Australia. Marsden presented the paper, The Diversifying Applications of Steel Fibre Reinforced Concrete in Australia, at the FRC 86 Rilem Symposium in Sheffield, England, July 1986.

PUBLICATION #C870517
Copyright 1987, The Aberdeen Group All rights reserved