Fibre Reinforced Cementitious Composites with adapted rheology: from state of art knowledge towards new boundaries for structural concrete applications

Fibre Reinforced Self-Compacting Concrete (FR-SCC) combines the benefits of highly flowable concrete in the fresh state with the enhanced performance in the hardened state in terms of crack control and fracture toughness provided by the dispersed fibre reinforcement. A “holistic” approach can be conceived to the design of structure made with highly flowable/self consolidating FRC, which encompasses the influence of fresh state performance and casting process on fibre dispersion and orientation, and the related outcomes in terms of hardened state properties. In this framework, this paper, after a review of the current state of the art on the aforementioned topics based on the research performed by the author in the last decade, the research needs will be discussed which have to be urgently tackled in order to address the use of this kind of advanced cement based materials for high end structural applications.