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The paper deals with observing the behaviour of concrete composites with addition of fibres under ambient and elevated temperature with the aim to determine the mechanical properties of materials. The experimental tests were conducted on three selected concrete composites which differ in a type and content of fibrous reinforcement used. The experimental work carried out was divided into several phases. First of all it was necessary to leave the produced specimens aging and drying in order to minimize the risk of unexpected damage caused by concrete spalling during heating. Time to time, the specimens were weighted with the aim to determine the loss of weight imposed by drying. Then, a heat transport test was performed on a few reference specimens in order to determine the time required for uniform heating the specimens up to 200 C, 400 C and 600 C. In the last phase, conventional testing methods were undertaken to determine the mechanical properties of concrete composites at ambient and elevated temperature. A compression test and a splitting tensile test were conducted on 150 mm cubes. Based on the results, the peak and residual strength of the materials were determined for various temperature levels. The obtained findings contribute to improving the knowledge in the field of both concrete structures exposed to high temperature and structural behaviour of fibre reinforced concrete. The findings can be also utilized in case of the structural design of concrete structures with the high risk of fire loading.
Fire Safety Journal 95 (2018) 66–76 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Fire Safety Journal j o u r n a l h o m e p a g e : w w w e l s e v i e r c o m / l o c a t e / fi r e s a f Mechanical properties of concrete composites subject to elevated temperature Josef Novak *, Alena Kohoutkova Czech Technical University in Prague, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Department of Concrete and Masonry Structures, Thakurova 7, 166 29, Prague 6, Dejvice, Czechia A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T Keywords: Fibre reinforced concrete Heat transport test Heat treatment Mechanical properties Elevated temperature Structural behaviour Fire resistance represents an important parameter which is necessary to consider during the structural design of buildings It is defined as an ability of building components to perform their intended load-bearing functions under fire exposure In terms of fire resistance, the right choice of a construction material plays a key role and can reduce structural damage or even save human lives The building industry offers a wide range of materials whose structural behaviour is more or less affected by temperature Recently, concrete has become one of the most utilized materials used for a various kind of buildings While the knowledge and experience with concrete behaviour under ambient temperature are well-known, the behaviour under elevated temperature has to be deeply investigated The paper deals with observing the behaviour of concrete composites with addition of fibres under ambient and elevated temperature with the aim to determine the mechanical properties of materials The experimental tests were conducted on three selected concrete composites which differ in a type and content of fibrous reinforcement used The experimental work carried out was divided into several phases First of all it was necessary to leave the produced specimens aging and drying in order to minimize the risk of unexpected damage caused by concrete spalling during heating Time to time, the specimens were weighted with the aim to determine the loss of weight imposed by drying Then, a heat transport test was performed on a few reference specimens in order to determine the time required for uniform heating the specimens up to 200 C, 400 C and 600 C In the last phase, conventional testing methods were undertaken to determine the mechanical properties of concrete composites at ambient and elevated temperature A compression test and a splitting tensile test were conducted on 150 mm cubes Based on the results, the peak and residual strength of the materials were determined for various temperature levels The obtained findings contribute to improving the knowledge in the field of both concrete structures exposed to high temperature and structural behaviour of fibre reinforced concrete The findings can be also utilized in case of the structural design of concrete structures with the high risk of fire loading Introduction Today, a structural design represents a very complex task which includes analyzing many parameters such as ultimate bearing capacity, stability, deflection, rigidity of structure etc The essential part, which has to be paid attention to, is also fire resistance defined as an ability of building components to perform their intended load-bearing functions under fire exposure Although the issue of fire safety seems to be not so important, the inadequate fire design or a construction material choice can cause structural damage or even loss of human lives For instance, in 2008 an extensive fire occurred in the 13-story Faculty of Architecture Building at the Delft University of Technology (TUD) in Netherlands [1] Although all building occupants evacuated safely, the fire burned uncontrolled for several hours and caused the structural collapse of the major portion of the building with a reinforced concrete structural system The key cause of the collapse is assumed to be the occurrence of spalling which rapidly and dramatically reduced reinforced concrete member capacities A massive fire also hit the Windsor Tower in Madrid, Spain, in February 2015 [2] The structural system of the tower was constituted of a reinforced concrete core, interior columns, waffle slab and steel exterior columns The part of building was exposed to the fire for 20 h resulting in the extensive structural damage As lately analyzed, a large portion of the floor slabs collapsed during the fire due to the failure of reinforced concrete elements However, according to other sources [3] * Corresponding author E-mail addresses: josef.novak.1@fsv.cvut.cz (J Novak), akohout@fsv.cvut.cz (A Kohoutkova) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.firesaf.2017.10.010 Received January 2017; Received in revised form September 2017; Accepted 29 October 2017 0379-7112/© 2017 Elsevier Ltd All rights reserved J Novak, A Kohoutkova Fire Safety Journal 95 (2018) 66–76 1.1 Steel fibre reinforced concrete the collapse was induced by buckling of steel columns during the fire Today, there are many regulations and standards which deal with the demands for the durability and fire resistance of concrete structures [4] The European standard EN 1992-1-2 [5] is a widely-used document which serves for designing concrete structures exposed to high temperature Recommendations and principles stated not only in this standard are usually based on the extensive experience and experimental investigations in the field of concrete composites subject to high temperature However, the available data does not have to accurately describe the structural behaviour of relatively new materials including fibre reinforced concrete (FRC) While the knowledge and experience with FRC behaviour under ambient temperature are well-known, the behaviour under elevated temperature has to be deeply investigated FRC is a building material whose utilization in the concrete industry has been rapidly increasing This development is motivated by its physical and mechanical properties which contribute to traditional concrete elements and structures various economical benefits such as structure subtlety, part or full elimination of conventional reinforcement, enhanced impact resistance, resistance to mechanical loads and environmental loads Recently, many comprehensive studies have been undertaken with the aim to observe the mechanical behaviour of FRC exposed to elevated temperature Although concrete is well-known for a high degree of fire resistance, high temperature seriously damages microstructure and mesostructure which results in generalised mechanical decay of a concrete composite [6] As a consequence, the extensive knowledge of mechanical properties of FRC exposed to elevated temperature seems to be decisive for a wider utilization of the material There are two fundamental types of methodological procedure used for observing mechanical properties of concrete at elevated temperature Most of experimental investigations [7–33] are conducted on test specimens at ambient temperature after high temperature exposure and only a few is performed on hot test specimens [34–36] Such approach of experimental testing is preferred mainly due to a simple way of testing as tests are easier to conduct on test specimens at ambient temperature However, if results obtained from the tests on specimens after high temperature exposure correspond enough to the mechanical properties of a tested material at a certain temperature level has not been still fully understood Bamonte and Gambarova belong to authors which very intensively deals with such issue and states in their publications [37,38] that the hot and residual (after high temperature exposure) behaviour in compression are very close; the only difference was observed in case of the peak strain in compression which is larger on heated specimens in comparison with specimens cooled down after temperature exposure The fire response of concrete composites is closely associated with concrete composition, particularly with a type and content of concrete components used Generally speaking, concrete made of siliceous aggregates, such as granite, shows unfavourable mechanical properties at high temperature compared to concrete composed of calcareous aggregates such as dolomite and limestone [34,39] Recently, a lot of interest is being paid on the possible use of metakaolin, fly ash and silica fume as partial cement replacement in concrete subject to high temperature [7,12,13] Owing to silica fume and fly ash fineness, concrete composites with such additions have denser microstructure and as a consequence their explosive spalling tendency increases [13] The amount and type of fibres also have an influence on the structural performance of a composite exposed to high temperature A number of experimental investigations have been conducted up to date with the aim to observe the fire response of FRC with a various type and amount of fibres Particularly, the studies are focused on the effect of a type, shape and content of fibres on the mechanical properties of concrete composites, mostly compressive and tensile strength including elastic modulus Namely, it concerns steel fibres [7,10,11,13–16,19,21,24–27,29,32–35], synthetic fibres [7,9,11–14,16,17,20,22,24,27,32,34,35] and mix of steel and polypropylene fibres [7,11,16,18,24,27,32,34,35] which are widely used in the concrete industry There also a few investigations which deals with carbon fibres [8,17] and glass fibres [17] As the melting point of steel is relatively high in comparison with other materials, the use of steel fibres seems to be beneficial for concrete composites exposed to high temperature Incorporating steel fibres into concrete composites remains advantageous even when the concrete composites are exposed to high temperature up to temperature up to 1200 C, particularly 1% content has no deleterious effect on heated concrete In fact, the inclusion of steel fibres in a concrete mix leads to an improvement in both mechanical properties and resistance to heating effects in comparison with unreinforced concrete [10,21,27,28,32] Some experimental investigations [15,19,26] even demonstrate the compressive strength of steel fibre reinforced reactive powder concrete and geopolymer concrete gradually increases when the material is heated up to 200–300 C, but starts to decrease as temperatures further increase The compressive strength of reactive powder concrete with 1% steel content is higher between 200 C and 400 C than at room temperature and subsides when temperature exceed 500 C Furthermore, 2% and 3% steel fibre content significantly increase compressive strength from 200 C to 300 C which then gradually decreases as the temperatures reach 400 C and beyond However, a higher content of steel fibres cannot improve the compressive strength of concrete composites at elevated temperatures [29] On the contrary, it has been also demonstrated that steel fibres have negligible effect on high temperature compressive strength and only improve tensile strength when temperature up to 400 C is considered [34] The tensile behaviour of SFRC subjected to elevated temperature is more sensitive to the volume fraction and the aspect ratio of the fibre than to its type [25] SFRC also has the higher toughness after the high-temperature exposures when compared to the initial values of unheated concrete [7] As temperature increases, SFRC weakens and shows reduced stiffness with the degradation depending on a type, aspect ratio, and volume fraction of the fibre [25] and the reduction in modulus of elasticity is more pronounced than the reduction in compressive strength for the same heat treatment [29] Steel fibre reinforced recycled aggregate concrete exhibits the identical behaviour and loses stiffness much faster than strength after exposure to elevated temperature [21] As a consequence, peak strains gradually increases together with temperature The increase in peak strains along with steel fibre content does not significantly differ between ambient temperature and 200 C When temperatures exceed 200 C, a higher steel fibre content generally is associated with a higher peak strain [15] Moreover, the addition of steel fibres does not eliminate the spalling tendency of concrete mixtures [13] 1.2 Synthetic fibre reinforced concrete In the concrete industry, synthetic fibres, regardless of a type, shape and length, are mostly utilized with the aim to increase concrete spalling resistance when concrete structures exposed to elevated temperature [20,35] As the melting point of synthetic fibres is relatively low, the presence of fibres in a concrete composite subjected to elevated temperature affects the mechanical properties of the concrete composite, particularly residual compressive strength, modulus of elasticity and splitting tensile strength [9] While the presence of polypropylene fibres slightly increase ductility and the specific toughness, defined as the ratio of the area under the stress–strain curve, and the compressive strength of unheated concrete, after heating all the enhanced characteristics are lost [7,27] Many contributions even demonstrate that polypropylene fibres have negative effect on the residual mechanical properties of polypropylene fibre reinforced concrete (PPFRC) after high-temperature exposure as they significantly decrease the residual compressive strength, elastic modulus and tensile strength as well as they increase peak strain [13,20,34] On the other hand, some experimental investigations show that polypropylene fibres can improve the relative residual compressive strength of a concrete composite after the exposure to fire [32] While the presence of polypropylene fibres at different 67 J Novak, A Kohoutkova Fire Safety Journal 95 (2018) 66–76 dosages does not affect the residual compressive strength at 200 C and 400 C, it considerably increases the residual compressive strength of concretes after exposure to 600 C [22] Moreover, some even shows that compressive strength of concrete with polypropylene fibre additions is greater than unreinforced concrete without additions, when subjected to temperature up to 400 C [28] In comparison with SFRC, polyvinyl alcohol fibres reduce the uniaxial compressive strength but cause no appreciable change in elastic modulus in reactive powder concrete [35] Experimental investigation Based on the gap in the field of FRC performance at high temperature, the presented experimental investigation was developed The whole work was carried out by the team of research workers at Czech Technical University in Prague for one year As the research was very extensive, the investigation was divided into several steps in the following order - test specimens production, heat treatment, compression test and splitting tensile test 1.3 Hybrid (steel ỵ synthetic) bre reinforced concrete 2.1 Test specimens The combination of steel and synthetic fibres represents a promising alternative how to ensure good toughness of a concrete composite before heating and improve its residual mechanical behaviour and spalling resistance as well as the ductility after heating [16] Although a few contributions declare that a fibre cocktail does not have much effect on high temperature compressive strength [34], the most of presented work affirm that the incorporation of steel fibres can effectively improve the compressive properties of a concrete composite when exposed to elevated temperatures while polypropylene fibres enhance concrete spalling resistance [18,32] Specifically, the combination of steel fibres and polypropylene fibres shows positive synergy effect on the post-peak behaviour of concrete composites before and after exposure to high temperature [16] However, as synthetic fibres have a low melting point and ignition point, only steel fibres provide the stability and enhanced mechanical behaviour to a concrete composite after exposing to elevated temperatures [27] Considering steel to synthetic fibre content ratio, a concrete composite containing 1% synthetic fibres and 1% steel fibres by volume seems to produce the best results, balancing performance at high temperature with consideration of initial mechanical properties [35] As a consequence, using hybrid fibre reinforced concrete (HFRC) (steel and synthetic fibres) might provide necessary safe guarantee for the rescue work and structure repair during and after a fire disaster All experimental tests were carried out on 150 mm cubes which are made of three concrete composites with different composition (Table 1) The investigated concrete composites are composed of easy available and widely used components which include Portland cement 42,5 R characterized by high early strength in accordance with CSN EN 197–1 [40], water and siliceous aggregate The workability of fresh concrete mass was maintained by using plasticizer Sika Visco Crete 1035 that also reduces the content of used mixing water The investigated FRCs also contain two types of fibres Single hook end steel fibres Dramix RC-80/60-BN have tensile strength 1225 MPa and served as main reinforcement in the concrete composites Whereas polypropylene fibres were added in concrete with the aim to reduce the risk of explosive concrete spalling which occurs at higher temperature [41,42] Totally, it was produced about one hundred specimens which were left aging and drying in standard conditions in a laboratory for one year During this process the specimens were irregularly weighted in order to determine the loss of weight in time caused mainly by drying However, after one year the decrease in weight was negligible in a range between 0.5% and 1% of the initial weight (Fig 1) As expected, the highest rate of weight loss was observed immediately after the production when mixing water is consumed for concrete hardening Long-term aging in normal conditions did not significantly affect the weight of specimens as well as the water content 1.4 Motivation 2.2 Heat transport test The state of the art review highlights that most of the experimental investigations have been undertaken on specimens cooled down after a fire exposure to obtain material properties Such methodological procedure likely considers further concrete deterioration in a cooling phase but is not capable to describe material properties at elevated temperature Since the main objective of the experimental investigation was to obtain the properties of a material right at time of a fire which will be subsequently used for a numerical simulation of steel-FRC composite columns at a fire, the proposed experiments were conducted on heated specimens The review also indicates several issues associated with the heat treatment of test specimens In most cases, test specimens are heated in an electric furnace with an automatic control system which only monitors the temperature in the furnace Heat treatment procedure, specifically time required for uniform heating, is based only on previous experience and no details are usually provided about uniform temperature distribution all over the specimen [7–25,27,28,32–35] However, such approach might be inappropriate when various heating rate and specimen shape are considered because the results obtained from experimental tests on non-uniform heated specimens might be vague The other issue is connected with limited database of results While there is extensive experience with conventional plain concrete at high temperature [6] the effect of fibres on the behaviour of FRC has not been fully understood Specifically, very limited data are available when pre-cracking and post-cracking tensile strength are considered Therefore, it is desired to enhance the database and subsequently validate or derive existing or entirely new stress-strain relations for a particular type of FRC, respectively As the compression test and splitting tensile test were conducted on hot specimens, first of all it was necessary to determine a time period required for the uniform heating of the specimens as well as to determine the rate of cooling in order to avoid excessive temperature loss during the tests The heat transport test arranged particularly for this investigation was performed on nine 150 mm cubes; three specimens of each composite were gradually used for the three temperature levels - 200 C, Table Concrete composition Concrete component Portland cement 42,5 R Water Fine aggregate 0–4 mm Coarse aggregate 4–8 mm Coarse aggregate 8–16 mm Plasticizer Sika Visco Crete 1035 Steel fibres Dramix RC-80/60-BN Polypropylene fibres Forta Ferro 54 mm 68 Content [kg/m3] Plain concrete (PC) Steel fibre reinforced concrete (SFRC) Hybrid fibre reinforced concrete (HFRC) 490 490 490 153 890 153 890 153 890 100 100 100 745 745 745 4.9 4.9 4.9 40 40 0 J Novak, A Kohoutkova Fire Safety Journal 95 (2018) 66–76 Fig Percentage loss of weight in time during specimens aging 400 C and 600 C The heat treatment was conducted by using a special system (Fig 2), which consists of a control machine Mannings HTC 70 kW, ceramic pads and K-type thermocouples measuring temperature in a range from À200 C to 1000 C First of all, three holes serving for the thermocouples installation were drilled in each cube Two 75 mm deep holes were positioned 10 mm from the edge, the last one at the centre with the aim to measure temperature in the specimen core (Fig 3) To ensure correct functioning of the thermocouples it was necessary to prepare the holes of the same diameter as the thermocouples have, otherwise any air void in the holes could affect the test results Afterwards, two ceramic pads were attached directly to four of six specimen sides The position of ceramic pads was secured by high temperature resistant glass wool insulation which was wrapped tightly around the pads together with a specimen The insulation used simulates so called thermo-box which also ensures heat accumulation during the heat transport test Subsequently, totally five thermocouples were installed in their position when three of them were inserted through the glass wool into the prepared holes drilled in the specimen and the other two were placed between the ceramic pads and a specimen to measure the surface temperature of the ceramic pads The temperature of an unheated side was measured time to time by an infrared thermometer and compared with the temperature distribution at the depth of the specimen Although the temperature development in a fire defined by the standard temperature-time curve (1) in accordance with CSN EN 1991-12 [5] is significantly faster, due to the control machine performance the θg ¼ 20 ỵ 345: log10 8:t ỵ 1ị (1) initial heat transport tests were conducted with the maximum heating rate 1000 C/h in order to simulate as much as possible the real Fig System used for heat transport test (a) control machine Mannings HTC 70 kW (b) K-type thermocouples (c) ceramic pads Fig Test specimen preparation for heat transport test (a) specimen with ceramic pads (b) specimen together with ceramic pads placed into thermo-box (c) specimen during heat transport test 69 J Novak, A Kohoutkova Fire Safety Journal 95 (2018) 66–76 removed from the thermo-box by using fireproof gloves, wrapped in new glass wool insulation and placed on steel plates The intention of this process was to simulate the steps required for performing the compression test and splitting tensile test on heated specimens and consequently to precisely validate the rate of heat loss While the temperature in the core was stabilized, the temperature on the sides of specimens decreased rapidly due to the low temperature of surrounding environment The rate of heat loss is more significant at specimens heated up to higher temperature due to a higher temperature gradient Based on the obtained data from the heat transport test, it was determined the maximum allowable time period for the compression test and splitting tensile test equal to 10 The test specimens used for the heat transport test also served for determining the volumetric mass density of materials at ambient and elevated temperature Before the heat transport tests, the prepared specimens were weighed and measured in order to determine the material density at ambient temperature The density ranged from 2350 kg/ m3 to 2400 kg/m3 which correspond to conventional concrete After the heat transport tests, the whole process was repeated With the aim to obtain as precise results as possible the holes for thermocouples were also considered during the volume calculation With increasing temperature the volumetric mass density gradually decreased down to a range 2300 kg/m3 - 2350 kg/m3, 2250 kg/m3 - 2300 kg/m3 and 2200 kg/m3 2250 kg/m3 corresponding to the temperatures 200 C, 400 C and 600 C, respectively The main cause is dehydration of the ingredients of cement paste, dissociation of calcium hydroxide Ca(OH)2 into CaO and water and free water evaporation [44] The influence of melted polypropylene fibres was negligible as their content was low Although the composition of all three concrete composites differed, the effect of temperature on the volumetric mass density of the materials was almost identical with no significant deviations conditions of a fire (Fig 4) While the specimens of HFRC did not exhibit any defects in response to the high temperature gradient, concrete spalling occurred at the specimens made of SFRC and PC in the 26th minute of the heat treatment Concrete spalling was imposed by both evaporable and nonevaporable water chemically bound with cement paste which causes the pore pressure buildup and subsequently spalling in concrete [43] At the time of concrete spalling, the temperature on the heated sides of specimens and in a core reached roughly 450 C and 60 C, respectively While a massive explosion and extensive spalling of a whole PC specimen happened, in case of a SFRC specimen only small pieces of the size in millimetres were released owing to the presence of steel fibres in the concrete composite The presence of polypropylene fibres in HFRC lowered the risk of concrete spalling as the fibres melted with increasing temperature due to low melting point The melted polypropylene fibres increased the concrete composite permeability witch it positively affected the pore pressure and subsequently decreased spalling in concrete As a consequence, the specimens were eventually heated up gradually step by step when temperature was increased depending on the amount of vapour visibly bursting out of the specimens with the aim to avoid any damage caused by extensive vapour expansion in SFRC and PC specimens When no or little vapour was spotted, the temperature was repeatedly increased by 50 C until a particular temperature level was reached Such approach was used for the first PC cube heated up to 600 C and as no concrete spalling occurred the identical heat treatment pattern was applied for the other specimens On average, such heat treatment corresponds roughly to the heating rate 200 C/h The heat transport tests were performed to determine the time period for the uniform heating up to 200 , 400 C and 600 C at all three concrete composites (Fig 5) The temperature at the interface between the ceramic pads and a concrete sample was increased step by step following always the same pattern until 250 C, 450 C or 650 , respectively, were reached As the test continued, the interface temperature was kept at the same level until the temperature in the specimen core reached 200 C, 400 C and 600 C respectively The increase in temperature on the heated sides of the specimen (at the 75 mm depth) was more rapid in comparison with the specimen core which is placed further from the source of heat The temperature distribution at zero depth on the top unheated side observed using the infrared thermometer differed from the one obtained at the 75 mm depth However, as the temperature gradient decreased during the heat transport test, the difference in the temperature distribution at both depths ranged from C to C and consequently was negligible The uniform heating of the specimens up to 200 C, 400 C and 600 C took approximately two, four and h respectively regardless of the concrete composition When the intended temperature levels were reached, the heat transport system was turned off in order to observe specimen cooling in detail First, the specimens were immediately 2.3 Compression test The concrete compression test was conducted on the 150 mm cubes under 20 C, 200 C, 400 C and 600 C in accordance with CSN EN 12390–3 [45] First, the whole set of specimens was divided into four groups according to the intended temperature level during testing The specimens tested under elevated temperature were heated up to the intended temperature following the procedure used during the heat transport test The specimens together with two ceramic pads were inserted into the thermo-box of glass wool (Fig 6) and then two thermo-couples were placed between the specimen and ceramic pads with the aim to control and monitor the temperature of the ceramic pads The time and heat treatment were identical to those obtained from the heat transport test Heating up to 200 C, 400 C and 600 C took 113 min, 235 and 370 min, respectively Fig Nominal fire curve and heating rates used for the heat transport test 70 J Novak, A Kohoutkova Fire Safety Journal 95 (2018) 66–76 Fig Heat transport diagrams (a) legend of thermocouples, (b) heating up to 600 C, (c) cooling of specimens heated up to 600 C, (d) heating up to 400 C, (e) cooling of specimens heated up to 400 C, (f) heating up to 200 C, (g) cooling of specimens heated up to 200 C Fig Test specimens during heating deformation 0.02 mm/s in the range of 0–5 mm and 0.1 mm/s for deformation greater than mm The obtained data from the test were used for generating compressive strength-displacement diagrams which describe the material behaviour at various temperature levels After the intended temperature in the specimen core was reached the compression test was performed in a testing machine Inova 200F The time of compression test of each sample had to be kept under 10 in order to avoid excessive temperature loss The test was driven by 71 J Novak, A Kohoutkova Fire Safety Journal 95 (2018) 66–76 The presented results no exhibit any significant deviations caused by either incorrect conducting the experimental tests or poor-quality manufacturing technology The diagrams of the investigated concrete composites regardless of the amount and type of used fibres correspond The compressive strength-displacement diagrams (Fig 7) show the structural behaviour of tested specimens at different temperature levels, mainly the peak and residual (post-peak) strength of the investigated materials Fig Compressive strength-displacement diagram of the concrete composites 72 J Novak, A Kohoutkova Fire Safety Journal 95 (2018) 66–76 200 C, 400 C and 600 C in accordance with CSN EN 12390–6 [47] The preparation phase was identical to that used for the compression test The specimens were divided into four groups according to the intended temperature during testing, the specimens tested under elevated temperature were inserted into thermo-boxes together with two ceramic pads and heated up for the specified time period to the intended temperature After the intended temperature in the specimen core was reached, the splitting tensile test was performed in a testing machine Inova 200 F (Fig 9) The time of the splitting tensile test of each sample had to be kept under 10 in order to avoid excessive temperature loss The test was driven by deformation 0.02 mm/s in the range of 0–5 mm and 0.1 mm/s for deformation greater than mm Based on the obtained data from the tests, splitting tensile strength-displacement diagrams describing the material behaviour at various temperature levels were generated The presented diagrams (Fig 10) show the tensile behaviour of the tested concrete composites at various temperature levels, mainly the peak and residual (post-peak) splitting tensile strength The obtained results are with no significant deviations imposed by mistakes made during testing or producing experimental specimens The mechanical behaviour described by the presented diagrams corresponds to the typical structural behaviour of either plain concrete or FRC In the opening phase the splitting tensile strength raises almost linearly until the peak strength is reached While a sudden fall in strength occurs at PC at this point, HFRC and SFRC exhibit residual strength Such phenomenon results from the absence of fibres in PC which is then weak in tension As consequence, a brittle failure occurs at specimens made of PC in comparison with other two concrete composites HFRC and SFRC are characterized as FRC with a tension softening curve [48] as their residual strength decrease after the first macro-crack occurs The regions with short-term increase in residual strength result usually from fibres which are gradually activated with increasing loading until they are fully activated Comparing to the composition of SFRC, HFRC contains extra kg/m3 polypropylene fibres Forta Ferro 54 mm (Table 1) and as a consequence its residual tensile strength is higher at ambient temperature when the polypropylene fibres act in the concrete composite together with the steel fibres Subsequently, the polypropylene fibres in HFRC burn out with increasing temperature and their influence on the concrete composite strength is negligible and as a consequence the peak and residual strength of HFRC and SFRC are almost identical The most interesting finding relates to the peak splitting tensile strength (when the first macro-crack occurs) of the investigated concrete composites The dependence of peak splitting tensile strength on ascending temperature at both PC and SFRC with no polypropylene fibres significantly differs in comparison with HFRC (Fig 11) The peak strength of HFRC gradually decreases with increasing temperature, whereas the ultimate strength of both SFRC and PC at 200 C is lower than the strength at 400 C This phenomenon is caused by the testing methodology when several types of stresses the hot specimens had to withstand during the splitting tensile test to Namely, it concerns the stresses from static loading and pore pressure tending to tear the specimens Moreover, the material properties worsen with increasing to the typical behaviour of concrete in compression In the opening phase, the compressive strength of the materials increases linearly until the concrete composites start yielding and ultimate compressive strength is reached The modulus of elasticity defined by the slope of the linear part of the curves significantly decreases at all concrete composites with increasing temperature This phenomenon is caused by the specimen structure significantly damaged by cracks resulting from both the high temperatures and pore pressure In case of the HFRC, the material structure at elevated temperature is also more porous as the polypropylene fibres melts due to the low melting point of the material [46] Consequently, the presence of polypropylene fibres in a concrete composite also affects the peak compressive strength of material (Fig 8) Moreover, the specimens, regardless of the type of a concrete composite, exhibit enhanced ductility with increasing temperature While the effect of temperature on the compressive strength of PC and SFRC with no polypropylene fibres is noticeable at the temperature higher than 400 C, the compressive strength of HFRC significantly starts decreasing already at lower temperature due to the porous structure of specimens caused by burned polypropylene fibres This phenomenon is particularly visible at SFRC whose compressive strength at 200 C, 400 C and 600 C corresponds to 99%, 99% and 55%, respectively, of its initial strength at ambient temperature and HFRC whose compressive strength at the same temperature levels represents 98%, 88% and 45%, respectively, of its initial strength The compressive strength of PC at 200 C, 400 C and 600 C is 94%, 94% and 51%, respectively, of the initial strength at ambient temperature In comparison with CSN EN 1992-1-2 [5] recommending to use for plain concrete with siliceous aggregates 95%, 75% and 45% of the initial compressive strength, respectively, the obtained results from the experimental tests differ significantly The effect of steel fibres in SFRC and HFRC on the behaviour and compressive strength of the materials at ambient and elevated temperature is negligible 2.4 Splitting tensile test Splitting tensile test was performed on 150 mm cubes under 20 C, Fig Peak compressive strength of the concrete composites at ambient and elevated temperature Fig Testing machine Inova 200 F (left) and split tensile test of heated specimen (right) 73 J Novak, A Kohoutkova Fire Safety Journal 95 (2018) 66–76 Fig 10 Splitting tensile strength-displacement diagram of the concrete composites the porosity of HFRC at elevated temperature is higher than the porosity of SFRC and PC due to the presence of the polypropylene fibres The polypropylene fibres melt shortly with increasing temperature and consequently the material porosity increases As a consequence, the failure mode of HFRC specimens at 200 C was typical because most of steam was released during the h heat treatment Whereas the SFRC and PC specimens exhibited a explosive failure mode with the visible steam temperature Considering such statement, the detailed analysis of such results can be carried out While the specimens of the investigated concrete composites were being tested, there had been already pore pressure inside them resulted from the heat treatment The level of pore pressure mainly depends on temperature gradient, time of the heat treatment and material porosity While the first two parameters are identical for all concrete composites, 74 J Novak, A Kohoutkova Fire Safety Journal 95 (2018) 66–76 200 C, 400 C and 600 C Based on the obtained data the following conclusions are made: ▪ The long-term aging and drying of FRC specimens, regardless of the type of fibre used, in normal conditions not significantly affect the weight of specimens as well as the water content ▪ The presence of polypropylene fibres in a concrete composite lowers the risk of explosive concrete spalling as the fibres melt with increasing temperature due to the low melting point Consequently the fibres increase the concrete composite permeability and decrease pore pressure Considering the heating rate 1000 C/h, HFRC, SFRC and PC exhibited no concrete spalling, low-level concrete spalling (in millimetres) and extensive concrete spalling, respectively ▪ With increasing temperature the volumetric mass density of concrete gradually decreases approximately down to 2375 kg/ m3, 2325 kg/m3, 2275 kg/m3 and 2225 kg/m3 corresponding to the temperatures 20 C, 200 C, 400 C and 600 C, respectively ▪ The presence of polypropylene fibres in a concrete composite affects the peak compressive strength of the material at elevated temperature In comparison with PC and SFRC, the peak compressive strength of HFRC decreased more rapidly with increasing temperature due to the higher porosity of specimens resulted from melted polymer fibres This phenomenon is particularly noticeable at SFRC whose compressive strength at 200 C, 400 C and 600 C corresponds to 99%, 99% and 55%, respectively, of its initial strength at ambient temperature and HFRC whose compressive strength at the same temperature levels represents 98%, 88% and 45%, respectively, of its initial strength ▪ When conducting splitting tensile test at 200 C, the SFRC and PC specimens exhibited explosive failure with visible steam release The main cause of such behaviour is pore pressure which together with applied load tend to tear the test specimens As a consequence, the level of pore pressure inside concrete composites affects the material capability to withstand tensile stress The presence of polypropylene fibres in HFRC increased the porosity of the material, subsequently decreased pore pressure in the specimens and consequently increased the capability to withstand applied load at 200 C While the peak splitting tensile strength of SFRC at 200 C, 400 C and 600 C correspond to 85%, 103% a 58% of its initial strength at ambient temperature, the peak strength of HFRC represents 97%, 88% and 41%, respectively, of its initial strength ▪ The comparison between tensile strength recommended for plain concrete with silica aggregates stated in CSN EN 1992-1-2 [5] and obtained results from the experimental investigation shows a significant difference While the standard recommends to use 80%, 40% and 0% of the initial tensile strength of concrete for the fire design of structures exposed to 200 C, 400 C and 600 C, respectively, the peak strength of PC obtained from the experimental investigation corresponds to 57%, 81% and 52% of its initial strength Higher strength of PC at 400 C than at 200 C is caused by the explosive failure at 200 C described in a detail above Fig 11 Observed splitting tensile strength of concrete composites at ambient and elevated temperature release while being tested The main cause of such failure is that the low material porosity enabled only little steam to be released within h heat treatment Since the SFRC and PC specimens were exposed to high pore pressure right at the time of testing, they failed at a lower level of applied load From my point of view, such phenomenon has not been investigated yet as the most experimental tests are conducted on specimens cooled down after fire exposure and thus with no pore pressure inside them The reason why such failure mode was not such distinctive during the splitting tensile test of PC and SFRC specimens at 400 C and 600 C is associated with the time of the heat treatment To heat the specimens up to 400 C and 600 C lasted twice and three times longer, respectively Such time periods enabled most of steam to be gradually released through micro pores in the composites and consequently to reduce the pore pressure right at the time of testing No explosive failure mode was also observed while the SFRC and PC specimens being tested at 400 C and 600 C which it only proves the statement The pore pressure inside the SFRC and PC specimens gradually fell down with increasing temperature to the value the HFRC specimens had Therefore, the peak splitting tensile strength of the investigated concrete composites at 600 C is almost identical While the peak splitting tensile strength of SFRC at 200 C, 400 C and 600 C correspond to 85%, 103% a 58% of its initial strength at ambient temperature, the peak strength of HFRC represents 97%, 88% and 41%, respectively, of its initial strength The increase in strength of SFRC up to 103% at 400 C might result from uncertainties and variance in the production and testing of the specimens Nevertheless, increasing strength in a range from ambient temperature to 400 C is rather usual for reactive powder concrete composites [15,18,26] but was also observed within the experimental investigation of concrete composites composed of conventional concrete components [14] The comparison between figures stated in CSN EN 1992-1-2 [5] for plain concrete with silica aggregates and obtained results from experimental tests shows a significant difference While the standard recommends to use 80%, 40% and 0% of the initial strength for the fire design of concrete structures exposed to 200 C, 400 C and 600 C, respectively, the peak strength of PC obtained from the tests correspond to 57%, 81% and 52% of its initial strength Based on the obtained findings, HFRC with addition of steel and polypropylene fibres is suggested to use for structures with the high risk of fire loading Despite the HFRC exhibited lower compressive strength at elevated temperature in comparison with the other concrete composites, owing to the presence of polypropylene fibres no explosive failure occurred during the splitting tensile test Moreover, polypropylene fibres reduce the risk of concrete spalling which is usually the main cause of concrete structure collapse The experimental investigation also shows that a tensile failure mode of hot specimens and specimens cooled down after fire exposure might be different Further within the ongoing project, the obtained results will be validated on real-size concrete elements Conclusion The paper presents the case study of the behaviour of the concrete composites under ambient and elevated temperature with the aim to determine the mechanical properties of the materials The experimental tests were conducted on three investigated concrete composites with a various type and content of fibrous reinforcement - plain concrete (PC), steel fibre reinforced concrete (SFRC) and hybrid fibre reinforced concrete (HFRC) 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to be decisive for... when temperature up to 400 C is considered [34] The tensile behaviour of SFRC subjected to elevated temperature is more sensitive to the volume fraction and the aspect ratio of the fibre than to. .. of fibres in a concrete composite subjected to elevated temperature affects the mechanical properties of the concrete composite, particularly residual compressive strength, modulus of elasticity