FLEXURAL BEHAVIOR OF SLURRY INFILTRATED MAT CONCRETE (SIMCON)

Slurry infiltrated mat concrete (SIMCON) is a new kind of fiber reinfo rced concrete with fibers preplaced in a mat form. It is shown in this paper that the mechanical properties of SIMCON such as flexural stren gth and toughness are improved significantly compared with conventiona l fiber reinforced concrete, due to the high fiber volume fraction and aspect ratio. Twelve series with a total 36 SIMCON specimens were tes ted under third-point bending. The effects of fiber volume fraction an d fiber mat thickness on flexural behavior of SIMCON were studied in t his experimental investigation. A special failure mode, consisting of a major vertical crack and horizontal branches, was observed and is an alyzed in this paper.