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Effect of polypropylene fibers on shrinkage and cracking of concretes

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Abstract

The effects of admixed polypropylene (PP) fibers on the drying shrinkage of hardened concrete are presented in this paper. Concrete mixtures made with Ordinary Portland cement (OPC) and OPC/Slag blended cements containing various volume fractions of PP fiber were tested. The results show small but consistently higher drying shrinkages in concretes incorporating PP fibers than that without fiber. The effect is more pronounced in slag concretes and in concretes cured for only 1 day. An attempt to explain this phenomenon was made by water loss, nitrogen adsorption, sorptivity and scanning electron microscopy tests on the same concretes. Additional moisture loss and porosity are proposed as possible reasons. The results of early-age restrained shrinkage tests on slag concretes show that PP fiber concrete had higher cracking tendency than the concrete without fiber. This was found to be due to higher shrinkage and elastic modulus of PP fiber concrete.

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Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support provided by the Independent Cement and Lime Pty Ltd (ICL) (Industry Partner) and the Australian Research Council (Linkage Project Grant No. LP0349121) for this research project. Assistance from David Huggett with the tests and the laboratory assistance provided by technical staff Graeme Rundle, Jeff Doddrell and Kevin Nievaart are also gratefully acknowledged.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Civil Engineering, Monash University, Clayton, VIC, 3800, Australia

    T. Aly, J. G. Sanjayan & F. Collins

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  1. T. Aly
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  2. J. G. Sanjayan
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  3. F. Collins
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Correspondence to J. G. Sanjayan.

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Aly, T., Sanjayan, J.G. & Collins, F. Effect of polypropylene fibers on shrinkage and cracking of concretes. Mater Struct 41, 1741–1753 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1617/s11527-008-9361-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1617/s11527-008-9361-2

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