Experimental comparative study of reactive powder concrete: mechanical properties and the effective factors

Reactive Powder Concrete (RPC) is a type of ultra-high performance concrete, this dense composite material generally characterized by high cement content, high durability, low porosity, low water/cement ratio and in most cases contains steel fibers as new types of concrete appears, further investigation for their mechanical properties are needed. This work aims to give a better understanding of RPC behavior by deriving formulas to calculate the modulus of elasticity and the splitting tensile strength in relation with compressive strength and steel fibers content. This study is based on data obtained from the experimental investigation done in this work and from others pervious works. The parametric study is based mainly on the silica fume content which is used in four different ratios (12 %, 15 %, 20 % and 25 %), the use of micro steel fibers 15 mm in length, 0.2 mm in diameter and aspect ratio of 75 added in ratios of (0 %, 1 %, 1.5 % and 2 %), and water/cement in ratios of (16 %, 18 %, 20 % and 22 %), respectively. The proposed equations show a better behavior in comparison to some available equations that were used in the estimation of modulus of elasticity and splitting tensile strength of reactive powder concrete, the coefficient of variation for the proposed equations (COV) decrease to 10.677% and 10.455% respectively