Flexural fatigue strength prediction of self compacting concrete

Abstract

The paper presents results of a study conducted to predict the flexural fatigue strength of Self Compacting Concrete (SCC) beams. In order to obtain fatigue life data of SCC, approximately 58 flexural tests were conducted on the beam specimens of size 100 x 100 x 500 mm under third point loading at different stress levels, ranging from 0.85 to 0.65. Approximately 45 static flexural tests were also conducted out to facilitate fatigue testing. All the fatigue tests were conducted on a 100 kN closed loop servo-controlled actuator. The results have been represented in the form of S-N diagrams and to predict the flexural fatigue strength of SCC, material coefficients of the available fatigue equations representing S-N curves, have been estimated. Subsequently, the two-million cycles fatigue strength of SCC has been determined and found to be higher than that of Normally Vibrated Concrete (NVC).