RIGID PAVEMENTS PERFORMANCE BY MEANS OF THE IMPLEMENTATION OF FIBERS. REVIEW

A contemporary and recent researches revision of fiber reinforced concretes used in rigid pavements’ structure is presented. The use of fibers in concrete mixture has favored the mechanic performance of hydraulic concrete increasing the ultimate tensile strength, energy absorption capacity and fatigue life. The ultimate tensile strength increases as the fiber percentage grows reaching up to 18.13% values while the compressive strength registered an increase of 0.47%. The highest values of the latter were obtained by implementing steel fiber, increasing in 31.99% the modulus of rupture (MOR). For the macro synthetic, polyester and carbon fibers, a greater performance was obtained, whereas the cellulose and PET fibers were the ones with the lowest performance managing to lower the MOR in a range of 9.56 and 18.85% respectively. On the other hand, up to 19.80% increases have been observed in the energy absorption capacity of the FRC due to the implementation of 1.28% fibers. In consequence, improvements in the flexural behavior of hydraulic concrete have obtained a lower thickness in the design for FRC pavements in comparison with the simple concrete with joints (JPCP) pavement design