THE EFFECT OF MACRO SYNTHETIC FIBER ON OPTIMUM WATER CONTENT AND STRENGTH PROPERTIES OF ROLLER COMPACTED CONCRETE

In this study, the effect of macro synthetic fibre on the optimum water content and the mechanical properties of roller compacted concrete (RCC) was investigated. A total number of sixteen RCC mixtures were produced with four different water content variation and four volumetric fibre levels of 0%, 0.2%, 0.4%, 0.6%. Soil compaction method was utilised to quantify the optimum water content against the maximum dry unit weight value for each RCC mixtures. Four different RCC mixes of which consistency was evaluated through the modified Vebe test were also produced according to the optimum water content identified. The compressive and splitting tensile strength tests of RCC were conducted in order to examine the effectiveness of fibre amount on the mechanical properties of RCC. The test results reveal that the required water for the adequate compactibility of fibre reinforced RCC increases with the incorporated amount of fibre. This paper underlines that the amount of fibre is not significantly effective on the compressive strength values whereas the maximum tensile strength is observed for 0.4% fibre reinforced RCC