Ductility of concrete slabs reinforced with low-ductility welded wire fabric and steel fibers

The use of low-ductility welded wire fabric (WWF) as a main tensile reinforcement in concrete slabs compromises the ductility of concrete structures. Lower ductility in concrete structures can lead to brittle and catastrophic failure of the structures. This paper presents the experimental study carried out on eight simply supported one-way slabs to study the structural behavior of concrete slabs reinforced with lowductility WWF and steel fibers. The different types of steel fibers used were crimped fiber, hooked-end fiber and twincone fiber. The experimental results show that the ductility behavior of the slab specimens with low-ductility reinforcement was significantly improved with the inclusion of 40kg/m3 of twincone fiber. Distribution of cracks was prominent in the slabs with twincone fiber, which also indicates the better distribution of internal forces in these slabs. However, the slab reinforced only with low-ductility reinforcement failed catastrophically with a single minor crack and without appreciable deflection.