Modeling the Behavior of Steel-Fiber Reinforced Concrete Ground Slabs. II: Development of Slab Model.

Steel-fiber reinforced concrete (SFRC) brings favorable properties to concrete pavements. The use of the material is limited by the lack of an appropriate analysis method. This paper is the second in a series of two aimed at providing a modeling approach, which can be used to model the behavior of SFRC concrete and SFRC ground slabs. In this paper, a finite-element model, capable of simulating the nonlinear behavior of the SFRC slab, is proposed and compared with the slab's experimental response. An approximate model describing the behavior of the support layers is developed using results from a plate-bearing test. The same support model is adopted for the analysis of the combined structure of the slab and the support. The material model developed and tested in the first paper, for the SFRC containing 15 kg/m³ of steel fiber, is adopted for the analysis of the SFRC slabs. In addition, a parameter study is conducted to investigate the influence of concrete strength, steel-fiber content, and the support stiffness on the load displacement (P-Δ) response of SFRC ground slabs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]