An Eco-Friendly UHPC for Structural Application: Tensile Mechanical Response

Abstract

This paper presents and discusses experimental results on the tensile mechanical performance of a newly developed ultra-high performance cementitious material, UHPC, incorporating spent equilibrium catalyst (ECat), a waste generated by the oil refinery industry, as a supplementary cementitious material. The results are compared to a previously developed conventional UHPC. The influence of ECat on the heat of hydration in UHPC is evaluated by isothermal calorimeter under a constant temperature of 20 . To determine the evolution of the tensile behaviour with time, a series of uniaxial tensile tests are performed on the specimens at different ages, i.e. 1, 3, 7, 28 and 91 days after casting. Afterwards, the fibre to matrix interfacial bond properties were characterized by executing a series of single fibre pullout tests at the age of 28 days on the steel fibres embedded in UHPCs with 0°, 30° and 60° orientation angles. The results confirmed the adequate performance of the new developed UHPC for the structural application. (c) 2021, RILEM.