Flexural fatigue performance of concrete made with recycled concrete aggregates and ternary blended cements

Abstract

Results of an investigation to evaluate the flexural fatigue performance of concretes made with fly ash, silica fume (SF) as partial replacement of Portland cement and 100% coarse recycled concrete aggregates (RCA) are reported. Flexural fatigue test data were obtained based on 168 static flexural tests and flexural fatigue tests conducted using Servo-controlled Actuator. The test data thus obtained were analysed and equations to estimate the flexural fatigue strength of concrete mixes were proposed. The probability distributions for the fatigue life of various concretes were also established. The flexural fatigue performance of various concrete mixes was assessed in terms of mean and design fatigue lives. The results obtained from the study show that flexural fatigue performance of concrete containing 100% RCA with 10% SF performed better than concrete containing 100% coarse natural aggregate.

Keywords:

• coarse recycled concrete aggregates
• silica fume
• fly ash
• endurance limit
• mean and design fatigue life

Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the staff of Concrete Structures Laboratories at Dr B R Ambedkar National Institute of Technology, Jalandhar, India during the experimentation work reported in the present investigation. One of the authors Sumit Arora would also like to acknowledge Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), Government of India for financial support in the form of scholarship to carry out this research.