Tensile fatigue behaviour of Ultra-High Performance Fibre Reinforced Concrete combined with steel rebars (R-UHPFRC)

Ultra-High Performance Fibre Reinforced Concrete (UHPFRC) combined with steel rebars, subsequently called R-UHPFRC, is a promising building material implying a novel technology for the improvement of concrete structures. Steel rebars enhance effectively the resistance of UHPFRC while reducing variability in the tensile behaviour of monolithic UHPFRC due to variation in fibre distribution and orientation. When a thin layer of R-UHPFRC is overlaid on top of a concrete bridge deck slab, it is subjected to repeating wheel loads and fatigue limit state needs to be considered. This paper presents the results of tensile fatigue tests on R-UHPFRC elements for the determination of its fatigue behaviour. Experimental results show a fatigue endurance limit at 10 million cycles at a solicitation level of S = 0.54 for S being the ratio between the maximum fatigue force and the ultimate strength. Over the fatigue life of the specimens, stress was transferred from UHPFRC to steel rebars. Fatigue resistance of R-UHPFRC shows that it has a significant potential for fatigue strengthening of reinforced concrete structural elements like bridge deck slabs.