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Three‐dimensional modeling of the distribution and orientation of steel fibers during the flow of self‐compacting concrete
Author(s) -
Bi Jihong,
Zhao Yun,
Guan Jian,
Huo Linying,
Qiao Haoyue,
Yuan Linlin
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
structural concrete
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.912
H-Index - 34
eISSN - 1751-7648
pISSN - 1464-4177
DOI - 10.1002/suco.201900072
Subject(s) - materials science , fiber , flow (mathematics) , orientation (vector space) , fiber reinforced concrete , computer simulation , casting , structural engineering , composite material , fluid dynamics , mechanics , engineering , geometry , mathematics , physics
Steel fibers may be added to self‐compacting concrete (SCC) to improve its mechanical performance; however, such improvement is subject to a number of conditions, an important one of which is the distribution and orientation of the fibers. The objective of this study is to propose a new method capable of predicting the variation of the distribution and orientation of steel fibers immersed in the SCC during flow. The flow of the steel fiber reinforced SCC is simulated by a computational fluid dynamics software, in which the volume of fluid method is used to track the free surface of concrete. On the basis of the velocity field of concrete obtained by the software, the motion of steel fibers is calculated by solving the rigid body dynamics equation. To validate the proposed method, a casting process of a concrete beam with steel fibers is simulated. The effectiveness of the numerical simulation is confirmed by a comparison with the experimental results. Meanwhile, the variation of fiber orientation during the flow of SCC is discussed by analyzing the fiber orientation factor.