Research
Moment capacity, Cracking Behaviour and Ductile Properties of Reinforced Concrete Beams using Steel Slag as a Coarse aggregate
This research paper outlines the method of preparation, testing procedure and salient results on the eco-friendly concrete that is manufactured using the waste products of steel industries. Results of eight flexural behaviour of Steel slag concrete beams and thier comparison with normal weight concrete (NWC) with reinforcement and without reinforcements are presented and discussed .The concrete is of grade 20 and the reinforced concrete beams of size 150 mm x 150 mm x 900 mm were prepared to study the structural behaviour. Similar grade concrete using NWC were also prepared and reinforced. It has been observed from the experimental investigation of the beams, that the moment capacity of SSRC beams was higher than NWC beams . In addition, the mode of failure observed in SSRC was ductile compared to the brittle failure of NWC beams. Thus, the SSRC beams showed a ductile failure, giving amble warning before failure happened. SSRC beams also exhibited a lot of cracking thus the crack width and crack spacing was small. The other advantage for SSRC beams was deflection. The SSRC beams exhibited higher deflection under constant load until failure, compared to NWC beams that failed in brittle manner without warning.
Engineering Performance of Concrete Beams Reinforced with GFRP Bars and Stainless steel
Corrosion of steel reinforcement is one of the main problems facing the construction industries throughout the world. Many methods have been used to minimize the problem but without success. Thus, more durable reinforcements are highly needed to replace conventional steel. Glass Fibre Reinforced Polymer (GFRP) bars provide a good alternative reinforcement due to its non-corrodible characteristic. This paper presents the flexural behaviour of concrete beams, each size is 150 x 150 x 900 mm and reinforced with GFRP and stainless steel bars. The behaviour of the beams was analysed in terms of their moment carrying capacity, loaddeflection, cracking behavior and mode of failure. The experimental results show that beams reinforced with GFRP bars experienced lower ultimate load, lower stiffness, and larger deflection at the same load level compared with control beam. However, the performance of the SSRB (Stainless Steel Reinforced Beam) reinforced concrete beams improved slightly when compared to Glass Fibre Reinforced Polymer concrete beams.
