Title:
Steel-Free Composite Slabs Made of Reactive Powder Materials and Fiber-Reinforced Concrete
Author(s):
Ammar Hassan and Makoto Kawakami
Publication:
Structural Journal
Volume:
102
Issue:
5
Appears on pages(s):
709-718
Keywords:
bond; bridges; fiber; formwork; shear
DOI:
10.14359/14666
Date:
9/1/2005
Abstract:
This paper describes a proposed design for deck slabs of slab-on-girder bridges and details relevant experiments. The design combines two established approaches—the Canadian steel-free fiber-reinforced concrete (FRC) slab and high-performance reactive powder composite materials (RPCM)—to solve the problem of deterioration of concrete slabs due to the corrosion of embedded reinforcement. Nonreinforced precast panels made of RPCM and restrained by external steel straps serve as permanent formwork for cast-in-place FRC. The two materials are made composite through an easy surface preparation, which gives a texture similar to that of an imprint of air-cell wrapping sheets, and through shear studs of the straps and of the supporting girders. Slant shear tests on composite RPCM and FRC cylinders assured that the suggested surface texture is relatively rough, where a coefficient of friction equals 1.24. Half-scale tests on the proposed composite slabs proved that the precast RPCM and the cast-in-place FRC behave compositely up to failure. The new design was able to prevent the longitudinal cracking, which is the main drawback of the FRC-only steel-free slab system.