Title: Influence of steel fibres on the sorptivity of corroded reinforced concrete

Authors: Yuvraj Singh; Harvinder Singh

Addresses: I.K. Gujral Punjab Technical University, Kapurthala, Punjab, India; Guru Nanak Dev Engineering College, Ludhiana, Punjab, India ' Guru Nanak Dev Engineering College, Ludhiana, Punjab, India

Abstract: The present paper describes the influence of steel fibres (SFs) on the sorptivity of RC members exposed to a corrosive environment. The concrete because of its inherent microstructure has a tendency to allow the ingress of moisture and other harmful gases into it, which triggers the corrosion of embedded rebars. The presence of other cracks therein further augments the rate of absorption that lead to their accelerated deterioration. With this background and the well-known crack-arresting potential of the SFs, an investigation was carried out on control, pre-loaded, and pre-corroded and loaded RC specimens to establish the effect of SFs in concrete on its rate of water absorption. In order to quantify this effect, sorptivity test was conducted on the cores extracted from the loaded un-corroded and corroded RC beams. It was found that inclusion of fibres alleviates the surface water absorption tendency of the concrete which enhances the durability.

Keywords: absorption; concrete; corrosion; durability; steel fibres; sorptivity.

DOI: 10.1504/IJDE.2023.131967

International Journal of Design Engineering, 2023 Vol.12 No.1, pp.30 - 48

Received: 05 May 2022
Accepted: 30 Dec 2022
Published online: 05 Jul 2023 *