Standards Development

Scope

This project is proposed to standardize the specimen and setup of direct tensile test for tensile stress versus strain response of strain hardening FRCCs.

Purpose

Strain hardening FRCCs (SH-FRCCs) have demonstrated their superior tensile strength, ductility, energy absorption capacity, and fracture toughness than normal concrete. SH-FRCCs include highperformance fibre reinforced cementitious composites (HPFRCCs), engineered cementitious composites (ECCs) and ultra-high-performance fiber-reinforced concretes (UHPFRCs). The superior mechanical and material resistance of SH-FRCCs has motivated structural engineers to apply them to civil infrastructure and buildings.

The use of SH-FRCCs is highly expected to enhance the mechanical resistance of infrastructure and buildings, especially under extreme loads including earthquakes, impacts and blasts. Moreover, the smaller width of multiple micro-cracks of SH-FRCCs than that of normal concrete is expected to enhance the durability of structural members and eventually lengthen the service life of infrastructure and buildings.

However, the use of SH-FRCCs is still very limited even though there have been increasing applications for them. The reasons for limited applications of SH-FRCCs include no international standard test methods and design codes in addition to the high costs.

Although many research papers have reported direct tensile stress versus strain response of SHFRCCs, the responses were obtained from the specimens with different geometry and different test setups. Consequently, it is not possible to quantitatively compare the tensile resistance of various SHFRCCs for the purpose of design consideration.

Thus, it is urgent to develop an international standard test method for the direct tensile stress versus strain response of SH-FRCCs. The proposed standard test method for the tensile response of SHFRCCs is expected to enable structural engineers to compare the mechanical resistance of SH-FRCCs and to estimate the structural resistance of structural members utilizing them.