Title:
Shrinkage Cracking Control of Concrete Using Non-Metallic Rebars and Meshes
Author(s):
Roghani
Publication:
Web Session
Volume:
ws_S22_Roghani.pdf
Issue:
Appears on pages(s):
Keywords:
DOI:
Date:
3/28/2022
Abstract:
This presentation aims to provide alternatives to address the challenges related to steel reinforced concrete shrinkage, which have been studied for more than half a century by different researchers. Shrinkage cracking not only affects aesthetics, but more significantly increases the probability of reducing concrete durability and structural service life. To control shrinkage cracking, minimum steel reinforcement is typically designed and implemented; nevertheless, the use of steel may not be suitable specially in environmental applications with a high risk of corrosion. To this end, to make applications such as horizontal construction (i.e., slabs-on-grounds, for example) more durable and sustainable, the use of non-metallic Fiber Reinforced Polymer (FRP) rebars and meshes as the secondary reinforcement can successfully address shrinkage cracking challenges. However, currently there is a lack of information and prescriptive guidelines based on empirical evidence to specify adequate levels and configurations of secondary FRP reinforcement needed based on the environmental conditions to which a concrete element may be exposed to. The overarching goal of this work is to provide empirical evidence to evaluate shrinkage cracks in concrete, by comparing specimens reinforced with FRP and steel reinforcements, therefore establishing feasible equivalency. This presentation provides an update of this ongoing research, where the crack area, length, and width are parameters that have been measured using image processing software for different reinforcement and configurations. The crack reduction ratio is then computed as a means to evaluate performance.