On the mechanical response of a fibre reinforced concrete redundant structure; the redistribution factor

Fibre Reinforced Concrete (FRC) is a material with enhanced properties in the post peak tensile region. While this material shows a highly scattered behaviour in standard characterisation tests, FRC structures capable of redistribution of stresses, show a highly repeatable behaviour. This study investigates the difference between the behaviour of Steel Fibre Reinforced Concrete (SFRC) in a redundant structure and its behaviour in structurally determinate schemes. To this aim the behaviour of 10 prismatic notched specimens of 60×15×15 cm, 3 shallow beams of 150×35×15 cm, and 2 slabs of 200×200×15 cm supported on four supports are compared. The results obtained show that the redundancy of a structure can drastically reduce its sensitivity to the high standard deviation of the material.