Influence of Mineral Powder Content on the Fracture Behaviors and Ductility of Self-Compacting Concrete

Abstract

This paper describes and discusses an experimental study on the effect of mineral filler on the fracture behavior and ductility of self-compacting concrete (SCC). Based on an experimental program, a series of three-point bending tests was carried out on 118 notched beams. SCC was prepared with various contents of mineral filler with water-to-cement (w/c) ratios of 0.47 and 0.6. For all mixes, the fracture parameters were analyzed using the work-of-fracture method (WFM) and the size-effect method (SEM) to obtain a suitable correlation between these methods that is used to calibrate fracture numerical models. Given an increase in mineral filler content and a decrease in the w/c ratio in SCC, the results yielded the following conclusions: (1) fracture energies, GF in WFM and Gf in SEM, increase slightly; (2) the brittleness number increases; (3) the characteristic length (Lch) in WFM and the fracture process zone length (Cf) in SEM decrease, which may be due to an increase in the packing density and changes in the pore size distribution; and (4) the behavior of SCC specimens, based on the size-effect curve, approaches the linear elastic fracture mechanics criterion. In addition, the results showed that there is a significant correlation between GF and Gf values (GF/Gf=3.0).