Reactive Powder Concrete (RPC) is made of very fine matrix with short steel fibres. The bridging fibre action increase the stress carried across the crack. To optimise the mechanical behaviour, the in- fluence of the orientation of fibres due to…
Reactive Powder Concrete (RPC) is made of very fine matrix with short steel fibres. The bridging fibre action increase the stress carried across the crack. To optimise the mechanical behaviour, the in- fluence of the orientation of fibres due to the process of casting must be studied. By considering a locally ori- ented mass of fibres as an ellipsoidal inclusion embedded in an homogeneous medium of concrete, the Eshelby's inclusion model allows to obtain a description of the micro-structural strain concentration and to develop a model for crack initiation based on equivalent strain criterion. By using the micro-plane model cou- pled with damage theory we simulate the crack propagation in relation with the orientation of the fibres. Specimens of RPC with a given orientation of fibres, tested under uniaxial tension, confirm such a role-played by a locally anisotropic elastic behaviour on crack initiation, and on the bridging action during crack propaga- tion.