Technical and environmental potentialities of recycled steel fiber reinforced concrete for structural applications

Abstract

The use of recycled materials and industrial by-products as sustainable constituents of cementbased materials could be an environmentally and technically promising solution for application to structural elements. In the present work, the technical and environmental impact of using recycled steel fibers as an alternative to industrial steel fibers for concrete reinforcement was assessed at material level. Numerical simulations were performed to derive the post-cracking constitutive laws of the developed Recycled Steel Fiber Reinforced Concrete (RSFRC) and Industrial Steel Fiber Reinforced Concrete (ISFRC) by inverse analysis of experimental results obtained from three-point notched beam bending tests (3PNBBT), round panel tests supported in three points (RPT-3ps) and double edge wedge splitting tests (DEWST). These simulations were able of fitting with high accuracy the experimental results and consequently to derive the tensile stresscrack width relationships of RSFRC and ISFRC that was used to numerically simulate the bending response of a T-cross section steel RSFRC beam failing in shear. The environmental impact of the incorporation of RSF in concrete in comparison with ISFRC was evaluated using Life Cycle Assessment methodology. The reduction of the environmental impact of the production of RSFRC compared to ISFRC with the same concrete strength class is demonstrated.