Modelling fibre-reinforced concrete for predicting optimal mechanical properties

Fibre-reinforced cementitious composites are highly effective for construction due to their enhanced mechanical properties. The selection of fibre material for this reinforcement is always challenging as it is mainly dominated by the properties required at the construction site. Materials like steel and plastic fibres have been rigorously used for their good mechanical properties. Academic researchers have comprehensively discussed the impact and challenges of fibre reinforcement to obtain optimal properties of resultant concrete. However, most of this research concludes its analysis without considering the collective influence of key fibre parameters such as its shape, type, length, and percentage. There is still a need for a model that can consider these key parameters as input, provide the properties of reinforced concrete as output, and facilitate the user to analyse the optimal fibre addition per the construction requirement. Thus, the current work proposes a Khan Khalel model that can predict the desirable compressive and flexural strengths for any given values of key fibre parameters. The accuracy of the numerical model in this study, the flexural strength of SFRC, had the lowest and most significant errors, and the MSE was between 0.121% and 0.926%. Statistical tools are used to develop and validate the model with numerical results. The proposed model is easy to use but predicts compressive and flexural strengths with errors under 6% and 15%, respectively. This error primarily represents the assumption made for the input of fibre material during model development. It is based on the material’s elastic modulus and hence neglects the plastic behaviour of the fibre. A possible modification in the model for considering the plastic behaviour of the fibre will be considered as future work.