Analytical Immediate and Long-Term Deflections of Fiber-Reinforced Concrete Beams

Abstract

Addition of discrete steel fibers to concrete enhances its properties, especially in the areas of serviceability and toughness. With the increasing use of shallow sections made of high-strength fiber concrete and capable of meeting the strength requirements, deflection behavior becomes an important factor that can control the design. This paper presents an analytical method that predicts the moment-curvature and load-deflection relationships for beams made of fiber concrete and containing conventional reinforcement. The proposed method evaluates the immediate deformation as well as the long-term deformation as affected by creep and shrinkage. The tension stiffening effect is incorporated to obtain a better prediction of the curvature and deflection. The analytical algorithm proposed to generate the complete moment-curvature and load-deflection curves provides a good correlation between predicted values and experimental test data reported in the literature. A sensitivity analysis is conducted to evaluate the effect of the material parameters on the predicted beam behavior.