Influences of Short Discrete Fibers in High Strength Concrete with Very Coarse Sand

Problem statement: High Strength Concrete (HSC) normally content high cementitous amount and low water binder ratio. However, these would cause substantial volume changes to the concrete and therefore affected the strength development. In addition, the brittleness of HSC was increased when silica fume used as partial cement replacement to achieve high strength. Approach: This study discussed the effects of incorporated short discrete Coconut Fibers (CF), Barchip Fibers (BF) and Glass Fibers (GF) into HSC to enhance the performance of concrete while kept the binder content at moderate level. Additional specialty to this HSC was casted with very coarse sand with fineness modulus of 3.98. A total of thirteen mixes were casted and tested for slump, density, compressive strength, flexural strength and ultrasonic pulse velocity in accordance with British Standards. Results: The slump was slightly reduced by the short discrete fibers. All of the fibrous specimens had lower density than control. However, the compressive strength of the HSC had increased from 71.8-79.0 MPa using 1.8% of BF, while flexural strength had increased from 5.21-6.50 MPa. All specimens showed that ultrasonic velocity higher than 4.28 km sec-1. Conclusion/Recommendations: In short, combination of incorporated short discrete fibers and applied very coarse sand to produce HSC showed very satisfying results and improvements. Further assessment on durability and impact resistivity will be verified in the coming research.