Self Consolidating High Performance SFRC: from material concept towards structural applications

Due to the synergy between Self Consolidating and Fiber Reinforced Concrete technologies a randomly uniform dispersion of fibers within concrete castings may be achieved, which is of a paramount importance to promote reliable structural appli-cations with fiber reinforced cementitious composites. Furthermore,, thanks to the suita-bly adapted rheology of the concrete matrix fibers may be effectively orientated along the direction of the fresh concrete flow during the casting process. By designing the lat-ter to the intended structural application such a direction may be made to match, as close as possible, with that of the principal tensile stress within the element when in ser-vice. A superior structural efficiency of the material may hence be sought and achieved, which may lead to optimized element shape, dimensions and self weight and turns into a more cost- and time-effective construction process, greatly contribut-ing towards sustainability. In this paper a case study performed in the above said framework with reference to structural applications of Self Consolidating High Perform-ance SFRC is detailed.