Application of ductile ber reinforced cementitious composite in jointless

concrete pavements
Jun Zhang

, Zhenbo Wang, Xiancun Ju

Department of Civil Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
Key Laboratory of Safety and Durability, Education Ministry of China, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Received 9 October 2012
Received in revised form 22 January 2013
Accepted 3 February 2013
Available online 27 February 2013
Keywords:
A. Ceramicmatrix composites
B. Mechanical properties
D. Mechanical testing
Fiber reinforced cementitious composites
a b s t r a c t
This paper presents an experimental study on the potential applications of the ber reinforced engi-
neered cementitious composite with characteristic of low drying shrinkage (LSECC) in concrete pave-
ments for the purpose of eliminating joints that are normally used to accommodate temperature and
shrinkage deformation. It is found that a composite slab containing both plain concrete and LSECC, with
steel bars at the LSECC/concrete interface, and designed construction procedures, it is possible to localize
the tensile cracks into the LSECC strip instead of cracking in adjacent concrete slab. The crucial problem
that interfacial failure in composite slab was prevented by using reinforcing bars across the interfaces.
Due to the strain-hardening and high strain capacity of the LSECC, the overall strain capacity and the
integrity of the composite slab can be signicantly improved. The temperature and shrinkage deforma-
tions can be accommodated by adequate selection on the length ratio of LSECC strip and concrete slab.
2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Concrete pavements are popular for roads subjected to heavy
trafc loads due to their high load carrying capacity and low main-
tenance requirement compared to exible asphalt concrete pave-
ments. Several hundred thousand kilometers of Portland cement
concrete pavements had been built in China in the past decades
[1]. The average service life of a concrete pavement is determined
by many factors including initial design, material properties, traf-
c, environment, salt application, presence and effectiveness of
protective systems and maintenance practices. All these factors
inuence the development of cracks in concrete pavements during
service. It is well understood that concrete shrinkage and temper-
ature changes are the two major mechanisms leading to the initial
crack formation in concrete pavements. That is because pavement
has a much larger surface area compared with other structural
members, such as beams and columns. As a result, shrinkage and
temperature variation induced cracking in concrete pavements is
more obvious. In order to avoid cracking in concrete pavements,
the continuous pavement is normally pre-cut into separate slabs
with length of about 46 m in practice, and the cuts form the joints
of pavements. Due to the relatively short lengths of the jointed
slabs, shrinkage and temperature induced stresses should be lower
and cracking within the slab may be prevented. The joints open in
the winter and close in summer, and the difference of the joint
opening between winter and summer may achieve several milli-
meters. During service, the joint openings in pavements can lead
to concrete spalling and punchouts. Further, damage due to debris
accumulation within the joints can lead to leakage of water
through the joint or cracked pavement. Therefore, the areas close
to the joints are the places most frequently be damaged in practice,
which in turn, control the pavement life in general, as illustrated in
Fig. 1. In addition, due to the existence of joints, the running
uncomfortableness becomes another disadvantage for concrete
pavements compared with exible asphalt concrete pavements.
Thus, the prevention of the formation of joints in concrete pave-
ment is crucial, and the sequence of deterioration stages described
above has to be interrupted before nal pavement failure in order
to prolong the service life and improve the conformability of the
pavements.
In the present study, ductile strips of ber-reinforced cemen-
tious composites are investigated as replacements for conventional
joints in concrete pavements. The concept of using ductile strips in
concrete slabs was rst introduced by Zhang et al. [2]. In these
strips between regular concrete slabs, a special kind of ber rein-
forced cementitious composite (ECC), with strain-hardening and
high strain capacity compared to concrete is applied [3,4]. Through
proper material and structure designs, the temperature variation
and concrete shrinkage induced deformations may be compen-
sated by the formation of very ne cracks within the strips with
crack width less than 80 lm. ECC exhibits macroscopic strain-
hardening after rst crack. The strain energy produced by
1359-8368/$ - see front matter 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compositesb.2013.02.007

Corresponding author at: Department of Civil Engineering, Tsinghua University,

Beijing 100084, China. Tel.: +86 10 62797422.
E-mail address: junz@tsinghua.edu.cn (J. Zhang).
Composites: Part B 50 (2013) 224231
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Composites: Part B
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shrinkage (under restrained condition) of hardened concrete and
temperature gradient can be released by the high deformation
within the ductile strips, and therefore, the damages occurred
around traditional joints in concrete pavement can be avoided.
Thus, the durability of concrete pavement can be improved, result-
ing in a longer service life. In addition, the running comfortable
problem normally occurred in jointed concrete pavements can be
overcome due to the replacement of joints with ductile strips.
Due to without coarse aggregate in ECC mixture, the drying shrink-
age of traditional ECC normally is much higher than concrete [5].
Such high shrinkage strain may lead longer strip requirement to
accommodate the deformations in the pavement and also may lead
un-expected shrinkage cracking inside of the strips. To implement
the concept of jointless concrete pavements and overcome the
problems that high drying shrinkage of traditional ductile material
may induced, an ECC with characteristics of low drying shrinkage
(LSECC) is used to form the ductile strips in the present paper
[5]. The cement used in LSECC has expansive property during hard-
ening and therefore the shrinkage of the composite can then be
compensated effectively, behavior as less shrinkage comparing
with traditional ECC. In addition, high early strength is another
mechanism for reducing drying shrinkage of the composite.
2. Design principles and experimental program
The target of present work is concentrating the deformation pro-
duced by temperature change and concrete shrinkage in adjacent
concrete pavement slabs into the strips placed between the two
slabs, to form a jointless concrete pavement system, as illustrated
in Fig. 2. To realize the above design concept, the tensile properties
of both concrete and LSECC material, as well as the interface be-
tween the two materials must be carefully tailored and designed.
First, the cracking strength of LSECC must be lower than the
strength of the adjacent concrete slabs. Second, the interfacial bond
strength between ECC and concrete slab must be high enough to
conrmthe cracking should not occur at the interface. The strength
difference between LSECC and concrete can be satised relatively
easy by adjusting the mix proportions of the materials and/or cast-
ing the strips at later age that the concrete slab cast. The difculty to
achieve above target may be the enhancement on the interface of
the ductile strip and adjacent concrete slab. Because if the failure
under tensile or bending loads occurs at the interface, the potential
higher strain capacity of ECC completely cannot be used and no
improvement on the performance of the pavement can be expected
compared with conventional joint concrete pavements. Therefore,
present paper will focus on the interfacial design to prevent the
interfacial failure in the ECCconcrete composite pavements. Cer-
tainly, the tensile properties of concrete and LSECC are also be eval-
uated in order to satised the design requirements.
Three tests are involved in the experimental program. First, the
tensile properties of plain concrete and a kind of LSECC was exper-
imentally examined to guarantee the strength difference is satis-
ed the design requirement. Second, the drying shrinkage of the
selected LSECC used as ductile strips was examined in order to con-
rm the low shrinkage characteristic [5]. Third, the designed inter-
facial connection methods to enhance the interfacial bond between
the ECC strip and the concrete slab were evaluated by three points
bending tests on composite beams in order to learn the reliability
of the designs.
2.1. Materials
In the present investigation, two types of cements, ordinary
Portaland cement used for concrete and the newly developed com-
posite cement with low drying shrinkage characteristic used for
ECC matrix. Natural sand and crushed limestone with a maximum
particle size of 5 mm and 20 mm, respectively, were used as ne
and coarse aggregates in concrete. The concrete mixture propor-
tions are listed in Table 1. A superplasticizing admixture was used
in the mixtures to guarantee the three fresh concrete having a
slump of 120140 mm. For ECC, silica sand with average particle
size 0.1 mm were used to form the matrix. Polyvinyl Alcohol
(PVA) ber supplied by Kuraray Company in Japan was employed
as reinforcement and the ber properties are listed in Table 2. Mix-
ture proportions of the LSECC adopted in this study are given in
Table 3.
2.2. Specimens, curing and testing procedures
For drying shrinkage test of ECC, a prism shape specimen mea-
suring 40 40 160 mm with two embedded copper heads at the
Pavement
Existing joint or crack
Subgrade
Damage susceptible zone
Fig. 1. Illustration of formation of joints and damages susceptible zone under trafc
load.
Pavement
Existing joint
Subgrade
LSECC strip
Interfacial reinforcing bars
Fine cracks
Fig. 2. Ductile joints in concrete pavement.
Table 1
Mix proportions of concrete, kg/m
3
.
Cement Water Sand Stone Fly ash
345 185 685 1090 85
Table 2
Properties of the PVA ber.
Density (g/
cm
3
)
Tensile strength
(MPa)
E
(GPa)
Diameter
(mm)
Length
(mm)
1.2 1620 42.8 0.039 12
Table 3
Mix proportions of LSECC.
Composite cement Water Sand Super plasticizer Fiber (volume, %)
1.0 0.35 0.3 0.012 1.7
J. Zhang et al. / Composites: Part B 50 (2013) 224231 225
two long ends for length measurement was used. After removing
from their molds (24 h after casting), the specimens were stored
in the room with constant temperature and relative humidity of
25 2 C and 60 1.5% for drying shrinkage deformation measure-
ment. The length measurement starts immediately after specimen
demolding until 28 days after casting.
The uniaxial tensile tests give tensile stressstrain performance
and related mechanical parameters, such as tensile strength and
strain of materials. Rectangular coupon specimens with size of
40 150 15 mm were used for LSECC to conduct uniaxial tensile
test. The molds used to cast the tensile specimens were made of
steel. After removing from their molds, the tensile specimens were
stored in water at 20 2 C for curing until tensile tests were car-
ried out. The tensile specimens were tested in uniaxial tension
with displacement control in a 250 kN capacity MTS 810 material
testing system with hydraulic wedge grips. Aluminum plates were
epoxy glued onto the ends of the specimens prior to loading at
least 6 h to enhance the ends for gripping. The actuator displace-
ment rate used for controlling the test was 0.0025 mm per second.
The strain was measured by two extensometers mounted on the
surface of the specimen. The measured gage length of extensome-
ter was 50 mm. The tensile test set-up and specimen with alumi-
num plates glued and extensometers mounted is shown in
Fig. 3a. For tensile tests of plain concrete, a loading holder devel-
oped by Li [4] was adopted (Fig. 3b). The holders were made of alu-
minum alloy. One was xed to the load cell and the other to the
actuator with standard MTS grips. The tensile load was transmitted
to the specimen by the anchor action between holders and the en-
larged ends of the specimen. To further prevent failure due to
stress concentration at the loaded ends of the concrete specimens,
two steel bolts with 6 mm diameter and 12 mm length were used
to reinforce the specimen ends. One end of each bolt was con-
nected with a nut and the other end was fastened to a
118 45 7 mm steel plate through another nut. Thus the failure
of the specimen under tensile load can be ensured to be within the
central position with a uniform cross section. The minimum cross
section of the specimen was 76 45 mm. The overall uniaxial ten-
sile strain was measured with two LVDTs, one on each side of the
specimen. The details of experimental set-up and geometry of the
test specimen are shown in Fig. 3b. The tensile tests were carried
out under displacement control with prescribed rate of 0.005 mm
per second in a 250 kN capacity MTS 810 material testing system.
The raw data of tensile tests consisted of time, load, position of the
piston and displacement from each extensometer. The tensile
behavior can then be determined from these test data.
The interfacial connection tests were used to evaluate the reli-
ability of the bond between the concrete slab and the ductile strips,
meanwhile to check the effectiveness of the replacement of con-
ventional joints with ductile strips. A composite beam with overall
dimension of 100 100 515 mm is employed with three bend-
ing load applied to the beam as a general loading condition. The
specimen is composed of two concrete blocks to simulate the
two adjacent concrete slabs and a ECC block with size of
100 50 300 mm placed in the top center of the beam to simu-
late the ductile strip. A steel bar with 10 mm diameter was used to
enhance the connection of concrete block and ECC strip. Two con-
necting steel bars having enlarged nut with outer diameter of 17
mm at ends, with different embedment length in concrete and/or
ECC, were placed at each interface. The detailed dimension of each
part of the composed beam is shown in Fig. 4. The concrete blocks
used for the composite beams were cast rst and designed steel
bars was embedded inside of concrete at prescribed locations.
75
120
1
6
5

1
8
0

1
6
5

45
Loading Hold
LVDT
Specimen
Unit: mm
Strengthen Element
(b)
(a)
Fig. 3. Test set-up and geometry of specimen of LSECC (a) plain concrete and (b) in tension.
226 J. Zhang et al. / Composites: Part B 50 (2013) 224231
The space left for ECC strip was formed by pre-placed wood block
with required dimensions in the mold. These concrete blocks were
cast and demolded 24 h after casting. After demolding, the blocks
were cured in moisture roomat 20 3 C and relative humidity lar-
ger than 95% for 2 weeks. Then the blocks were placed back into
the mold again and the empty space left for ECC strip was cast.
The composite beams were demolded 24 h after the ECC strip
was cast and were cured in the moisture room for another 2 weeks
before testing. As control, specimens without steel bars were cast
also at the same time. Conventional concrete and mortar mixers
were used to prepare the fresh materials. For plain concrete, the
mixing time was 5 min. For LSECC about 10 min mixing time was
used to ensure good ber distribution in the matrix.
Deection is carefully monitored during bending testing using a
reference beam attached to the top of the beam by three steel
blocks glued to the beam surface. A standard Toni linear variable
differential transducer (LVDT) is used for measuring the movement
of the actuator displacement. A extensometer mounted on the cen-
ter of the beam is used for measuring the deection. The loading
congurations for three point bending test is shown in Fig. 5. The
bending test is conducted at a prescribed deformation rate of
0.05 mm per minute using the signal from the LVDT as feedback.
All tests are carried out on a Toni testing machine equipped for
close-loop testing. The raw data consisted of time, load and dis-
placement reading from load cell, LVDT and extensometer respec-
tively. Data are recorded by the test machine and transferred to a
computer for further processing. All types of the composite beams
used in the experiments are summarized in Table 4.
3. Results and discussions
3.1. Drying shrinkage behavior of LSECC
The measured drying shrinkage up to 28 days of conventional
ECC using normal Portland cement in matrix [5] and LSECC made
by low shrinkage cementitious material is shown in Fig. 6. We
can clearly see that the drying shrinkage deformation of the com-
posites using the newcementitious material in matrix is greatly re-
duced. The shrinkage strain at 28 days is only 242 10
6
of the
new developed ECC. For traditional ECC, the shrinkage strain at
28 days is nearly 1200 10
6
that is almost ve times larger than
the shrinkage of LSECC. Further, the result indicates that the drying
shrinkage of the LSECC is even lower than that of normal concrete,
which normally has the magnitude of shrinkage strain of 400
600 10
6
at 28 days under the similar testing conditions. This
means that under the same or similar curing periods and environ-
mental conditions, as cracking does not occur in normal concrete
structure, the same or even higher no-cracking guarantee can be
provided as using LSECC to replace normal concrete in the struc-
ture. Therefore, after applying the LSECC as the ductile strip in con-
crete pavement, un-expected shrinkage cracking can be reduced
and the requirement on the overall deformation capacity to com-
pensate temperature strain produced by the adjacent concrete
slabs may become small and the required strip length may be
shorter than that when conventional ECC was used [2]. Further,
due to its low drying shrinkage strain, the shrinkage cracking along
the trafc direction should be able to be avoided that may happen
as using normal ECC as the ductile strips.
3.2. Uniaxial tensile behavior of LSECC and plain concrete
ECC is a cement based composite reinforced with short ran-
domly oriented bers. The composite has been micro-structurally
engineered to strain-harden via multiple cracking in uniaxial ten-
sion [3,4]. ECC exhibits macroscopic strain-hardening after rst
Fig. 4. Design of composite beam.
Fig. 5. Experimental set-up for composite beam under bending load.
Table 4
Interfacial details used in the composite beams.
Number of interfacial steel reinforcements Embedment length (mm)
No 0
Two 25
Two 50
Two 100
J. Zhang et al. / Composites: Part B 50 (2013) 224231 227
crack. During strain-hardening, multiple cracks develop with con-
tinuously reducing crack spacing until localization occurs at one of
these cracks. The fracture site is not necessary the rst crack site.
The evolution of multiple cracking appears to be a stochastic pro-
cess associated with distributed initial aw sizes [6].
As an important material property, the tensile behavior of
LSECC and plain concrete used in the composite beams is deter-
mined rst. Fig. 7 displays the tensile stressstrain curves of plain
concrete and LSECC at 28 days of moisture curing. From the tensile
results, rst we may clearly see that the tensile strength of plain
concrete is about two times higher than that of LSECC. Such behav-
ior can guarantee the cracking should occur inside of the ductile
strip in the composite structure under tensile or bending loads as
long as the bond between concrete slab and ECC strips is sufcient
high that the interfacial failure can be prevented. Second, the
LSECC can well maintain the strain-hardening and multiple crack-
ing performance along with tight crack width less than 0.05 mm
[5], that normal ECC displayed. This performance conrms that if
cracking can be leaded into the inserted strips, the deformation
of the structure due to temperature variation, live load, and shrink-
age can be accommodated effectively by the formation of micr-
cracks inside of the strip. Clearly, the success on the jointless
concrete pavement now depends on the interface of concrete slab
and ECC strip. This is crucial to realize the concept apart from the
material properties tailoring.
3.3. Bending performance of LSECCconcrete composite beams
The objective performing bending test on concreteECC com-
posite beams is to examine if the present interfacial design can
prevent the interfacial failure in current jointless concrete pave-
ment system. Such interfacial failure had been observed in the
experiments of ECC linked steel reinforced slab and the interfacial
transition zone was designed to overcome the interfacial failure in
ECC linked steel reinforced slab [7,8]. In present study, the ECC
concrete interface is simply enhanced by steel reinforced bars with
enlarged end nuts only. The simplicity in construction is important
for its application in jointless concrete pavements.
The bending performance of the composite beams with differ-
ent concreteLSECC interfacial enhancing bars is displayed in
Figs. 8 and 9 in terms of load and middle point deection diagrams.
The corresponded failure model of the beams are displayed in
Fig. 10, in which the smaller photographer present in the gure
displays the ner cracks formed inside of the ductile strip at side
Fig. 10b and top Fig. 10c faces respectively. From the results dis-
played in the gures, rst we can see that as without reinforcing
bars connecting the concrete slab and ECC strip (Fig. 8), the com-
posite beam behaviors immediate failure along the interface be-
tween concrete and LSECC. The load carry capacity of the beam is
simply controlled by the physical bond of LSECC and concrete
block, which is the weakest part in the composite system in the
current situation. The maximum exural stress achieved under
bending load is only about 4 MPa, which reects the magnitude
of exural strength of cold jointed concreteLSECC interface. The
loaddeection curves display apparent brittle nature behaving
as load carrying capacity suddenly drops after the peak load. No
ne cracks can be nd in the ECC strip. As using two reinforcing
bars at the interfacial zone to bridge the each interface, with
embedment length of 25 mm, 50 mm and 100 mm respectively,
the bending performance of the composite beams were completely
changed from interfacial failure to cracking inside of ECC strips, see
Fig. 10ac respectively for different embedment length of the steel
bars.
Flexural strain hardening behavior was occurred, along with
larger deformation and ductile failure characteristic. Meanwhile,
the bending strength of the beam is also signicantly increased
compared with the case of interfacial failure, for example, the
bending strength of the composite beams with interfacial failure
and ductile strip cracking are 4 MPa and 8 MPa respectively. The
0 7 14 21 28
Time (days)
0
400
800
1200
D
r
y
i
n
g

s
h
r
i
n
k
a
g
e

(
x
1
0
-
6
)
Traditional ECC
LSECC
Fig. 6. Drying shrinkage of LSECC and traditional ECC.
0.00 0.50 1.00 1.50 2.00 2.50 3.00
Tensile strain (%)
0.00
1.00
2.00
3.00
4.00
5.00
6.00
T
e
n
s
i
l
e

s
t
r
e
s
s

(
M
P
a
)
Plain Concrete
LSECC
Fig. 7. Tensile stressstrain curves of plain concrete and LSECC.
0.00 0.50 1.00 1.50 2.00 2.50 3.00
Deflection (mm)
0.00
1.00
2.00
3.00
4.00
5.00
6.00
7.00
8.00
9.00
10.00
F
l
e
x
u
r
a
l

s
t
r
e
s
s

(
M
P
a
)
L=450mm
No steel bars
No steel bars
Fig. 8. Bending performance of composite beam without interfacial reinforcing
bars.
228 J. Zhang et al. / Composites: Part B 50 (2013) 224231
load transferring ability of the interfaces is greatly improved,
which is an importance aspect needed to be considered in the de-
sign of conventional jointed concrete pavement. As expected, with
increase of embedment length of the steel bars, from 25 mm to
100 mm, the bending performance is improved, but it looks that
little difference can be found between embedment length of
50 mm and 100 mm. This means that the 50 mm embedment
length is sufcient to achieve the target of leading the cracking into
the LSECC strips. For the specimens with embedment length of
25 mm of the steel bars, the interface of LSECC and concrete failure
is still observed, but the bending behavior is improved compared
to the case without any reinforcement at interface, as shown in
Fig. 8. From the photographers attached in Fig. 10, we can clearly
see that the without steel reinforcing bars at interface, the interfa-
cial failure cannot be prevented and the cracking inside of the duc-
tile strip cannot occurs. By contrast, as using steel reinforcing bars
and with embedment length of 50 or 100 mm length, the interfa-
cial failure can be prevented and the ne cracks had been displayed
within the ductile strip.
3.4. Further discussions
3.4.1. Construction procedures for jointless concrete pavements
As state above, if the interfacial bond strength between ECC and
concrete slab is high enough and the interfacial failure can be pre-
vented, in order to realize the cracking occurs only inside of the
ductile strips, the cracking strength of LSECC must be lower than
the strength of the adjacent slabs. Such difference in cracking
strength can be realized by mix proportion design and/or casting
the strip later than the concrete cast. In practice, the pavements
may be constructed with traditional manners just at the location
where a joint notch should be cut, to put a prefabricated ller with
required steel bars in it and the thickness may be less than the
thickness of pavement, generally half of the pavement thickness
is sufcient to maintain a tight crack opening at pavement top after
the joint crack reecting into the ECC layer [9]. After concrete con-
struction, the ller is picked out and the space is left for ECC strips
cast that should be cast afterwards. In such construction proce-
dure, the weakest location in the continuously constructed pave-
ment is still at the place where the prefabricated ller is put in.
Several days after concrete cast, the joint crack should be formed
around the center of the prefabricated ller due to reection of
existing joint in the concrete slab. This predestined location of
existing joint crack is important also for completely avoid cracking
in adjacent concrete slab because the unsymmetrical joint cracking
in the base concrete may lead interfacial shear failure. After the
ECC strips were cast, the existing joint crack should reect into
the ECC layer in the manner of formation of many ne cracks, with-
out loss of load transferring capacity [9].
3.4.2. Strip length requirements to accommodate the deformation of
pavement
The strip length required to accommodate the deformation of
pavement depends on the strain capacity of the ductile material
and the space length between the strips, as well as local tempera-
ture variation and shrinkage of concrete. Assume a composite slab
is composed of two kinds of materials, LSECC and plain concrete
with length l
I
and l
II
respectively. The slab has the same cross sec-
tion along the length. Further assume that the two materials are
perfectly joined together without failure at the interface under ten-
sile load, above experimental study already demonstrates it is pos-
sible by simply introducing steel reinforcing bars at interfacial
zone. The general dimension of the slab and the corresponding
stressstrain relationship under tensile load of individual materials
are shown in Fig. 11, where the concrete tensile strength is higher
0.00 0.50 1.00 1.50 2.00 2.50 3.00
Deflection (mm)
0.00
2.00
4.00
6.00
8.00
10.00
F
l
e
x
u
r
a
l

s
t
r
e
s
s

(
M
P
a
)
L=450mm
R_L=25mm
R_L=25mm
(a)
0.00 0.50 1.00 1.50 2.00 2.50
Deflection (mm)
0.00
2.00
4.00
6.00
8.00
10.00
F
l
e
x
u
r
a
l

s
t
r
e
s
s

(
M
P
a
)
L=450mm
R_L=50mm
R_L=50mm
(b)
(c)
0.00 0.50 1.00 1.50 2.00 2.50 3.00
Deflection (mm)
0.00
2.00
4.00
6.00
8.00
10.00
F
l
e
x
u
r
a
l

s
t
r
e
s
s

(
M
P
a
)
L=450mm
R_L=100mm
R_L=100mm
Fig. 9. Bending performance of composite beam with interfacial reinforcing bars
and embedment length (a) 25 mm, (b) 50 mm and (c) 100 mm.
J. Zhang et al. / Composites: Part B 50 (2013) 224231 229
Bottom face
(a)
(b) (d)
(c)
Fig. 10. Photographers of composite beams at ultimate failure, (a) without interfacial reinforcing bars, (b) embedment length 25 mm, (c) embedment length 50 mm and (d)
embedment length 100 mm.
(a)
(b)
ECC PC
l
l
I l
II
I
II
S
t
r
e
s
s

Strain
I
II

t,ECC

t,PC

fc,ECC
I-II
F F
Fig. 11. (a) A ECC/PC tensile bar and (b) schematic stressstrain behavior of ECC and concrete under uniaxial tensile load.
230 J. Zhang et al. / Composites: Part B 50 (2013) 224231
than that of ECC. Under uniaxial tension, the overall strain capacity
of the slab in length direction, e
c
, can be given by
e
c
e
I
l
I
l

e
II
l
II
l

1
where e
I
is the strain capacity of ECC and e
II
is the strain value of
plain concrete corresponding to the tensile load. l is the total length
of the slab. Therefore, the composite strain capacity, e
c
, is a function
of e
I
, e
II
and l
I
or l
II
. For given material properties, e
c
is inuenced
only by the individual element length l
I
or l
II
. For safety, we assume
e
I
is equal to 12%, which can easily achieved for ECC materials.
Fig. 12 displays the overall strain capacity, e
c
as a function of l
I
with
given strain capacity of ECC, e
I
of 1% and 2%. It shows that for a given
ECC element length the higher the strain capacity of ECC used, the
higher the overall strain capacity of the composite bar. Second, a
high composite strain capacity can also be obtained through adjust-
ing the length of the ECC strip.
On the demand side, the required strain capacity for the com-
posite slab is determined from the imposed strain mainly due to
the combined effect of thermal deformation and shrinkage of con-
crete, as shown in the following equation:
e
R
a
T
DT e
sh
2
where e
R
is the required total tensile strain. a
T
is the coefcient of
thermal expansion of concrete, generally equal to 0.001%/C. DT is
annual temperature variation, approximately 5060 C for Beijing
for example [10]. e
sh
is shrinkage strain of concrete, normally equal
to 0.06%. Using DT = 60 C and e
sh
= 0.06% in Eq. (2), we may obtain
e
R
= 0.12%. From Fig. 12, we may get the ratio of the length of ECC
strip to the total length of the composite pavement is about 0.05
and 0.10 for 2% and 1% tensile strain of ECC used respectively,
means for 6 m length slab, which is the general joint space in tradi-
tional concrete pavement [1], the required ductile strip is 0.60 and
0.30 meter for strain capacity of ECC of 1% and 2% respectively. It
should be noted that Eq. (2) does not take the effect of live load into
account. As live load is considered, the strip length may increase a
little.
Clearly, with a reasonable combination of plain concrete and
ECC strips, it is possible to achieve a prescribed strain capacity
requirement without a loss of load carrying capacity. In such situ-
ation, cracking can be avoided within the plain concrete section as
the structure is subject to tensile stress, such as shrinkage and tem-
perature stresses. Instead, the ECC strip plastically yields to
accommodate the imposed strain. In addition, the formation of
tight cracks within the ductile strips should form the base of crack
healing under moisture environments that should also be of great
interests for improvement of durability of concrete pavements and
prolong its service life. Further, such combination can still follow
the traditional construction procedures just leaving the required
space for the ductile strips which should be cast afterwards. Mean-
while remaining the total cost of the jointless concrete pavements
comparable with traditional jointed concrete pavements due to the
limited strip length required, but with super service ability and
long service life.
4. Conclusions and future work
This paper presents an experimental study on the potential
applications of the ber reinforced engineered cementitious com-
posite in concrete pavements for the purpose of eliminating joints
that normally used to accommodate temperature and shrinkage
deformation. It is found that a composite slab containing both plain
concrete and LSECC strips, with a simply enhancement at the
LSECC/concrete interfaces by using steel bars, and designed con-
struction procedures, it is possible to localize the tensile cracks into
the ductile strip instead of cracking in adjacent concrete slab. The
crucial problem that interfacial failure in composite slab of LSECC
and concrete was prevented by using reinforcing bars at the inter-
faces. Due to the strain-hardening performance of the ECC material
with high strain capacity, the overall strain capacity and the integ-
rity of the composite slab can be signicantly improved. The tem-
perature and shrinkage deformations can be accommodated by
adequate selection on the length ratio of ductile strip and concrete
slab. Further experiments with larger scale specimens are needed
in order to apply the concept explored in the present work in more
realistic eld situations.
Acknowledgments
Support from the National Science Foundation of China (Nos.
50878119, 51278278) and Twelfth Five-Year plan projects from
the National Science and Technology (No. 2011BAJ09B01) to Tsing-
hua University are gratefully acknowledged.
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I
0.00 0.04 0.08 0.12 0.16 0.20
l /l
0.00
0.10
0.20
0.30
0.40
0.50
O
v
e
r
a
l
l

s
t
r
a
i
n

c
a
p
a
c
i
t
y

(
%
)
=0.01%, = 2%, 1%
II

I
Fig. 12. Overall strain capacity of ECCconcrete composite bar as a function of ECC
strip length, l
I
.
J. Zhang et al. / Composites: Part B 50 (2013) 224231 231