Statistical characterisation of reinforcement properties for textile-reinforced concrete: a novel approach

Abstract

The potential of textile-reinforced concrete is broad: it can be used in new structures and in the retrofitting of existing structural components. Designing textile-reinforced concrete requires knowledge about the mechanical properties of different textile types. To this, a standardised tensile test for fibre strands was used. The test aims to statistically characterise two material properties needed in design: ultimate tensile strength and the modulus of elasticity. To this, the influence of length and number of fibre strands were evaluated. The results show that the ultimate tensile strength can be statistically modelled by a Gumbel distribution and the modulus of elasticity can be characterised by a Normal distribution. These findings can be used to derive appropriate partial safety factors for the design value of tensile strength using probabilistic methods, or to directly determine the failure probability of textile-reinforced concrete components.