Construction and Building Materials 37 (2012) 452461

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Construction and Building Materials

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/conbuildmat

Review

Lightweight aggregate concrete ber reinforcement A review

Mahmoud Hassanpour a,, Payam Shagh b, Hilmi Bin Mahmud b
a
b

Department of Civil Engineering, Ghaemshahr Branch, Islamic Azad University, Ghaemshahr, Iran
Department of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

h i g h l i g h t s
" The addition of bers on the properties of different types of LWACs was reviewed.
" Generally, the inclusion of bers in LWAC improves its mechanical properties.
" Even very low volume fractions of steel ber prevent brittle failure of LWAC.
" The effectiveness of ber in LWAC is more pronounced than NWC.
" A combination of steel ber and non-metallic bers results in better toughness.

a r t i c l e

i n f o

a b s t r a c t

Article history:
Received 11 February 2012
Received in revised form 8 June 2012
Accepted 21 July 2012
Available online 5 September 2012

The higher brittleness and lower mechanical properties of lightweight aggregate concrete (LWAC) compared to normal weight concrete (NWC) at the same compressive strength has prevented it from being
widely used in the construction industry despite its many advantages. Studies have shown that the
use of bers in LWAC is an appropriate solution to resolve such problems. This paper reviews the inuence of the addition of bers on the properties of different types of LWAC. These properties include the
workability, compressive strength, stressstrain behavior, tensile strength, modulus of elasticity, and
compressive and exural toughness. Generally, the inclusion of bers in LWAC, as single or hybrid forms,
improve its mechanical properties, and signicantly increase its toughness, ductility performance and
energy absorption, while decreasing its workability, particularly when steel ber is used in the concrete
mixture. In the case of splitting tensile and exural strengths, the effectiveness of ber in LWAC is more
pronounced than NWC.
2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords:
Lightweight concrete
Fiber
Mechanical properties
Toughness
Ductility

Contents
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . .
Workability. . . . . . . . . . . .
Density . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Compressive strength. . . .
Stressstrain diagram. . . .
Modulus of elasticity . . . .
Splitting tensile strength .
Flexural strength . . . . . . .
Conclusions. . . . . . . . . . . .
References . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Corresponding author. Tel.: +98 9111130800; fax: +98 1113226777.

E-mail addresses: mhassanpour2012@yahoo.com (M. Hassanpour), pshagh@gmail.com (P. Shagh), hilmi@um.edu.my (H.B. Mahmud).
0950-0618/$ - see front matter 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2012.07.071

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453
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459

M. Hassanpour et al. / Construction and Building Materials 37 (2012) 452461

1. Introduction
Concrete is a widely used material throughout the world. Huge
quantities of various types of concrete are used annually. Because
of the extensive usage of this material, many researchers are investigating the engineering properties of this material. The enhancement properties of concrete in fresh and hardened states,
durability and its environmental impact are very interesting topics
for research. One method to increase some engineering properties
of concrete is the use of bers as an additional basic material in the
concrete mixture. The ber can be made from natural material
such as asbestos, sisal and cellulose or a manufactured product
such as glass, steel, carbon and polymer [1]. The use of bers to
reinforce a brittle material can be traced back to Egyptian times
when asbestos ber was used to reinforce clay pots about
5000 years ago [2]. However, the modern development of ber
reinforced concrete in the concrete industry may have begun
around the early 1960s [3]. The most benecial characteristics of
ber-reinforced systems are those of increased exural capacity,
toughness, post-failure ductility and crack control [4]. In addition,
it has been reported [5] that ber reinforcement in concrete significantly increases the compressive ductility, toughness and energy
absorption at early ages.
Fibers are categorized as metallic, polymeric or natural [7].
Among the various types of bers, steel ber is the most commonly
used for most structural and non-structural purposes [2,8]. This is
followed by polypropylene (PP), glass and other bers, however,
these are not commonly used for structural concrete applications
[2]. The reasons for the greater usage of steel ber include economics, manufacturing facilities, reinforcing effects and resistance to
environmental aggressiveness [9].
Concrete, like glass, is brittle, and hence has a low tensile
strength and shear capacity [1012]. An increase in the strength
of concrete causes an increase in its brittleness [13,14] which
makes the concrete very susceptible to cracking. This cracking creates easy access routes for deleterious agents leading from early
saturation, freezethaw damage, scaling, discoloration and steel
corrosion [15]. The low cracking potential of concrete in the early
stages of hydration and in-service life is desirable for designing a
durable structure. It has been reported that in ber reinforced concrete the crack width and crack spacing reduce, especially at early
ages [16,17]. Fiber reinforced concrete shows better durability in
service than concrete without ber as bers limited spreading of
cracks inside the concrete [1822].
The type of ber and its volume fraction has a marked effect on
the properties of ber reinforced concrete. The ber-reinforced
composites can be classied as a function of their ber volume
fraction such as low (<1%), moderate (between 1% and 2%) and high
volume fraction (greater than 2%) [2]. It has been reported that
adding steel ber into concrete in the amount of 11.5% by volume
increases its tensile strength by up to 100%, exural strength by up
to 150200% and the compressive strength increases by 1025%
[8]. The ber induces a homogeneous stress distribution in the
concrete, which causes better exploitation of the high strength matrix [23]. Furthermore, the addition of steel bers improves the impact strength and toughness [24] and transforms concrete from a
brittle to a more ductile material [25,26]. Steel ber concrete has
much higher fracture energy than plain concrete [27]. Dhakal
et al. [28] reported that both the compressive strength and the
strain corresponding to peak stress increase with the addition of
steel bers. Furthermore, the maximum compressive strain of steel
ber concrete is higher than plain concrete. In the case of tensile
strength, it was reported [29] that with the same type and volume
of steel ber, the improvement is much more for LWAC than NWC.
This is due to higher brittleness of LWAC than NWC [30].

453

Nevertheless, despite the many advantages of adding steel ber

to concrete, this ber has certain disadvantages, particularly the
reduced workability of fresh concrete [31] and because of its high
specic gravity, it can increase the dead load of a composite [32]. In
addition, ber reinforced concrete mixtures need more mixing and
placing time than plain concrete [23,33].
The weight of concrete structures is large compared to the imposed load they can carry. With the rapid development of very tall
buildings, large-size and long-span concrete structures, structural
lightweight concrete (LWAC) with different types of LWA has been
widely investigated and successfully developed and used in recent
years [3439]. The application of structural lightweight concrete in
the construction industry has many advantages, such as a high
strength/weight ratio, savings in dead load for structural design
and foundation, reduces the risk of earthquake damage to a structure, good tensile strain capacity, superior heat and sound insulation characteristics, low coefcient of thermal expansion and
better durability [33,38,4042]. Nevertheless, some problems in
its engineering properties have prevented it being widely used in
the construction industry in load bearing structural members
[7,43]. The brittleness of lightweight concrete is higher than normal weight concrete (NWC) for the same mix proportion and compressive strength [29,30]. Furthermore, generally, the mechanical
properties of LWAC are lower than NWC [7,4446]. Recently, high
strength lightweight aggregate concrete (HSLWAC) with a compressive strength of 50100 MPa has been successfully produced
with several types of lightweight aggregate [43,4749] with much
better mechanical properties than normal strength LWAC. However, an increase in the concrete strength causes further brittleness
of the concrete in compression and tension [13,50,51], especially in
the case of LWAC [48]. One way to resolve the brittle texture of
LWAC and its low mechanical properties is the use of bers, such
as steel, polymer, glass, carbon and hybrid bers [7,5256]. The literature on ber reinforced LWAC shows that most of the research
focused on the use of steel bers as single or combined with nonmetallic bers in LWACs. This study provides a brief summary of
previous researches on the effect of bers on the properties of
LWAC in its fresh and hardened state.
2. Workability
The workability of concrete is chosen with respect to site compaction by vibration. In the case of LWAC the lighter mix causes a
lower slump, because of the inuence of gravity on the slump value [57]. It has been reported [2] that a 5075 mm slump may be
sufcient for good workability of LWAC. The high slump value of
LWAC causes oating of the coarse aggregate and the heavier mortar away from the surface which may lead to nishing problems.
Therefore, ACI 213R-87 recommends a maximum of 100 mm
slump for achieving a good surface in oors made with LWAC [2].
The inclusion of bers into concrete has a negative effect on the
workability of fresh concrete [5861]. The effect of ber on the
fresh properties of normal weight self-compacting concrete (SCC)
and lightweight self-compacting concrete (SCLC) also shows that
the inclusion of bers into self-compacting concretes has a remarkable negative effect on the fresh properties [6,62]. The degree of
decreasing workability depends on the type and content of the bers used. For achieving a ber reinforced concrete with good selfcompacting characteristics, it has been suggested that the amount
of paste increases with the increasing cement content, thereby
increasing the ne aggregate content or using pozzolanic admixtures [6].
Chen and Liu [51] reported that at a xed volume content of bers for expanded clay HSLWAC, different types of bers have different effects on the slump and slump ow. Among the three types

454

M. Hassanpour et al. / Construction and Building Materials 37 (2012) 452461

of ber, namely polypropylene, steel and carbon, polypropylene ber showed the lowest effect and steel ber showed the highest effect on reducing the slump value. Furthermore, when the slump
loss was small in the concrete without bers, concrete with steel
ber showed a signicant reduction on slump value with time.
Usually, a superplasticizer is used for increasing the workability
and reducing the balling effect of ber in the ber concrete mixes
[61,63]. Campione et al. [64] reported that for pumice and expanded clay LWACs reinforced with steel ber, good workability
of the mixtures was obtained by adding 1.5% of superplasticizer
by cement weight. The maximum volume fraction of ber in their
study was 2%, having a length of 30 mm and an aspect ratio of 60.
Experimental studies [30] have shown that even for low steel ber content (<1%), when the steel ber content is over 0.4%, a higher dosage of superplasticizer is needed in order to ensure the
appropriate workability for mixtures and to prevent the concrete
mixture from blocking on bers. In addition, in the case of PP ber
used in expanded slate LWAC, the dosage of superplasticizer increases with increasing amount of ber in the mixture [65]. For
achieving better workability for a mixture containing steel ber,
Olivito and Zuccarello [66] pointed out that an improvement of
steel ber mixtures can be obtained by increasing the ne aggregate content or adding uidifying additives.
In a study [58] it has been shown that in NWC the use of y ash
as a replacement for cement compensates for the decreased workability of ber reinforced concrete. In this study it was shown that
although bers, such as steel and plastic polypropylene, caused a
28% decrease in the workability of the concrete, with the use of
a certain percentage of y ash (FA) in the mixture the workability
remained constant. Therefore, similar to that of NWC, the use of FA
in ber reinforced LWAC compensates the reduction in workability. Generally, to ensure good workability for ber reinforced concrete, the use of low dosages of bers is recommended [67].
For many brous mixes with a low or even zero slump value,
the vibration of such concrete is satisfactory. Therefore, the traditional slump test is not generally suitable to evaluate the workability of ber reinforced concrete, and, therefore, alternative
workability test methods should be used [4,58]. Edgington et al.
[4] reported that among the three standard workability tests,
namely slump, VB and compacting factor, the VB test is the best
when ber reinforced concrete is subjected to compaction by
vibration. A VB time in the range of 310 s represents adequate
workability for placement by vibration [68]. In addition, another
test method for assessing the workability of ber reinforced concrete under vibration is the inverted slump cone test. According
to ASTM C 995 [69] with an internal vibration into inverted slump
cone, the time of passing of all ber-reinforced concrete from the
slump cone will be recorded. The range of 830 s is appropriate
for placement by vibration. Times of greater 30 s show that the
concrete will be very difcult to place. For inverted cone, ow
times of less than 8 (s) using the traditional slump test may be
the most practical alternative for such concrete. However, both
the inverted slump cone and VB test results correlate closely [68].
Libre et al. [70] used the inverted slump cone for evaluation of
the workability of ber pumice LWAC. The cement content, the
water to cement ratio, the superplasticizer percentage and the
weight ratio of coarse lightweight aggregate to natural river sand
were 475 kg/m3, 0.3%, 0.7% and 0.56%, respectively. The slump value for this concrete was in the range of 1520 mm without any bers. They used end-hooked steel ber with 35 mm length and
0.55 mm diameter. Steel bers with volumes of 0%, 0.5% and 1%
and PP bers with volumes of 0%, 0.2% and 0.4% were used individually and combined. The inverted slump test for all ber-reinforced
mixtures showed a ow time in the range of 45120 s. Inclusion of
PP ber has less effect on workability. Each mixture including steel
ber showed signicantly low workability. For achieving better

workability for steel ber reinforced LWAC, use of an air-entraining

admixture in addition to a superplasticizer are recommended [55].
One of the main characteristics of a self-compacting concrete is
that it has superior performance in the fresh state. Although the
addition of bers to the concrete reduces the workability, the production of ber reinforced self-compacting concrete was reported
as being feasible [71,72]. In the case of LWAC, recently, the successfully production of self-compacting LWAC with different types of
lightweight aggregates were reported [7376]. However, the application of bers for making a cohesive ber reinforced self-compacting LWAC needs to be investigated further.
3. Density
Among all the types of bers, steel ber is the most commonly
used for improving the mechanical properties of LWAC [30]. Adding steel ber to LWAC increases its density. This is because this ber has high specic gravity. The test results showed that usually a
higher dosage of steel ber causes heavier lightweight concrete
[33,50,52]. Because the most general-use concrete has a compressive strength between 20 and 40 MPa [8], achieving compressive
strength in this range for LWAC is not difcult and is applicable
in the construction industry. Therefore, one of the main disadvantages of using steel ber in LWAC is increasing the density. This
phenomenon should be considered by designers, especially when
moderate or high volume (>1%) steel ber is used in LWAC. Therefore, it is recommended that in the case of steel ber, low ber content (1% by volume or less), with or without other types of bers
that do not signicantly affect the density (e.g., polypropylene,
etc.) should be used in LWAC.
The test results of a study conducted by Gao et al. [43] showed
that by inclusion of rectangular steel ber with different aspect ratios (46, 58 and 70) and different volume fraction (0%, 0.6%, 1%,
1.5% and 2%) in an expanded clay HSLWAC, the density was not affected by the aspect ratio of steel ber, but was mainly affected by
the volume fraction. A similar conclusion can be derived from the
test results of Khaloo and Sharian [50] for different aspect ratios
(42, 47 and 57). The test results of previous studies
[33,43,50,59,70,67,78] showed that the inclusion of steel ber into
structural lightweight aggregate concrete in volume fractions of
0.25%, 0.5%, 0.75%, 1%, 1.5%, 2% and 3% increased the density on
average of 1.1%, 3%, 3.3%, 4.6%, 5%, 5.4% and 7.5%, respectively.
Gao et al. [43] suggested the following equation for estimating
the density of steel ber concrete:

Dc Dm 1  V f Ds V f

where Dc is the density of steel ber reinforced HSLWAC; Dm is the

density of HSLWAC; Ds is the density of steel ber and Vf is the ber
volume fraction in the range of 02%.
It was reported that the use of mineral admixtures such as silica
fume and y ash, in LWAC could reduce the density further [79].
Therefore, to compensate for the negative effect on the density of
LWAC by adding steel ber, it is recommended that such additives
be used in the LWAC mixture. The results of the tests conducted by
Koksal et al. [60] showed that a high strength concrete with 15%
silica fume as additive is 2% lighter than the reference concrete
(concrete without silica fume). By adding 1% volume fraction of
steel ber (with an aspect ratio of 80 and density of 7.85 g/cm3)
to this concrete the density of the concrete was still lighter (about
1%) than the reference concrete while the steel ber concrete without silica fume resulted in a higher density of about 1%. Furthermore, the use of an air-entraining admixture in LWAC mixtures
can be used for reducing the density and also improving the workability [80]. In addition, Swamy and Jojagha [81] suggested the use
of water-reducing-plasticizer admixtures, along with PFA to re-

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M. Hassanpour et al. / Construction and Building Materials 37 (2012) 452461

lease the interlocking friction between the bers and aggregates in

steel ber lightweight and normal weight concrete with poor
workability.
Compared to steel ber, non-metallic bers are much lighter.
For example, the density of carbon and PP ber is approximately
80% and 88% less than that of steel ber, respectively [51]. Therefore, in structural lightweight aggregate concrete instead of using
a high volume fraction of steel ber it is suggested that a low volume fraction of steel ber with a non-metallic ber (hybrid ber)
be used. The test results showed that a LWAC with 0.5% volume
fraction of steel ber (by length (L) of 35 mm and diameter (D)
of 0.55 mm) and 0.2% of PP ber (L = 12 mm and D = 0.016 mm)
is about 3.2% lighter than such LWAC with 0.5% of steel ber while
the engineering properties of both ber reinforced concretes were
comparable [70].

4. Compressive strength
Among the various types of bers, the effect of steel and PP bers has been researched in respect of the properties of LWAC. In
most cases, it was reported that although the steel ber increases
the compressive strength of LWAC the increase is not signicant
and that the PP ber has no effect on the compressive strength
of LWAC.
The highest increase in compressive strength for steel ber
sanded LWAC was reported by Libre et al. [70]. They reported that
adding 0.5% volume of steel ber (L = 35 mm and D = 0.55 mm) to
natural pumice LWAC decreased its workability signicantly and
increased its compressive strength by up to 60% while with the
addition of 1%, the compressive strength only increased by up to
50%. The decrease in the compressive strength for higher levels
of steel ber may be due to the difculty in dispersing the ber
and the concrete not being fully compacted [43].
Campione et al. [82] investigated the effect of steel ber
(L = 30 mm and aspect ratio = 60) on the properties of LWAC made
of expanded clay (with maximum grain size of 12 mm) in monotonic and cyclic loads. They reported that when this LWAC (of
grade 20) was reinforced by steel ber in volume fractions of
0.5%, 1% and 2%, its compressive strength increased by about
22%, 29% and 38%, respectively in monotonic load and by about
23%, 23% and 41%, respectively, in cyclic load.
Furthermore, increases of up to 30% [64], 22% [43], 21% [33],
20% [83] and 14% [78] for compressive strength of steel ber reinforced LWAC with good workability have also been reported. However, several authors reported that adding steel ber to HSLWAC
does not affect the compressive strength [29,84], or, that it even
has a negative effect [77]. The test results reported by Balendran
et al. [29] have shown that a sanded LWAC made with sintered pulverized fuel ash (Lytag) LWA with 28-day compressive strength of
90 MPa and density of 2015 kg/m3, when reinforced with 1% volume fraction of straight steel bers (L = 15 mm and
D = 0.25 mm), the compressive strength changed to just 91 MPa
while its tensile strength increased signicantly.
Kayali et al. [52] investigated the effect of steel ber (L = 18 mm
and aspect ratio = 37.5) on a HSLWAC made of coarse and ne Lytag LWAs with a 28-day compressive strength of 65 MPa. To improve the workability and reduce the harshness of this LWAC,
they replaced 25% of the ne LWAs with y ash. The test results
showed that steel bers at 0.56%, 1.13% and 1.7% by volume of
the concrete caused a decrease in the compressive strength, on
average, of about 5.7%. A reduction in the compressive strength
through adding steel ber was also observed in NWCs [85,86].
For example, adding 2% volume fraction of steel ber (L = 60 mm
and D = 0.8 mm) to a high strength normal weight concrete (HSC)
with a 28-day compressive strength of 56 MPa, reduced the

strength by up to 41%. However, by adding 5% and 10% silica fume

to this mixture, the reduction decreased to 23% and 85%, respectively [85]. In most cases, the reason for decrease in the compressive strength is that the dispersion of ber, especially in high
volume fractions is very difcult and consequently, causes poor
workability and incomplete compaction [43,87].
Domagala [30] pointed out that the type of test specimen has an
effect on the compressive strength of steel ber reinforced concrete. He showed that a LWAC made with sintered y ash as coarse
aggregate, when reinforced by 0.6% volume fraction of a steel ber
(L = 50 mm and D = 0.75 mm) showed three different increases in
the compressive strength of about 3.6% for 150-mm cube, 4.7%
for 100-mm cube, and 7.0% for 150 mm  300 mm cylinder mold,
which reveals that the cylinder specimens have higher compressive strength than the cubic specimens for the same ber reinforced concrete. However, contrary to this report, Topcu and
Canbaz [58] showed that for normal weight, normal strength concrete containing y ash, a signicant increment in the compressive
strength of the steel ber reinforced concrete was observed (up to
95%) for the cube specimens, while the same concrete showed a
slight increase (up to 13%) in the compressive strength when it
was tested for the cylinder specimens.
The test results of Compione et al. [64] showed that the effectiveness of steel ber on the compressive strength of LWAC
strongly depend on the aggregate type. They reported that the
incorporation of steel bers into the matrix of expanded clay LWAC
showed an increase in the compressive strength of up to 30%, while
in the case of pumice stone LWAC the variation in the strength was
negligible. They demonstrated that compared to pumice stone
LWA (irregular in shape), the surface of the aggregate in contact
with the steel bers decreases in the case of expanded clay (round
and regular in shape). Therefore, a higher strength was observed
for expanded clay LWAC. It should be noted that the effectiveness
of bers would be more in composites when they are free from
aggregate interference [88], which causes better bermortar
interfaces. In addition, data from a study conducted by Duzgun
et al. [33] show that the effectiveness of steel ber on the compressive strength of a LWAC strongly depends on the amount of LWA in
the concrete. They substituted 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% of normal
coarse aggregate by pumice LWA, which produced four LWACs
with densities of approximately 2030, 1840, 1630 and 1450 kg/
m3, respectively. Table 1 shows the increase in the percentage of
compressive strength of these LWACs by adding steel ber
(L = 60 mm and D = 0.8 mm) in different volume fractions. As can
be seen in this table, it is clear that the effectiveness of ber on
LWAC with higher amounts of LWA (lighter LWAC or LWAC with
lower strength) is higher for all percentages of steel bers.
The effect of low volume content of steel ber (61%) on grade
35 oil palm shell LWAC in different curing conditions showed that
in continuous moist curing, the rate of strength gain was greater as
the age increased, especially for concretes with higher steel ber
content. This may be due to the better bond between the ber
and the matrix at later ages [78]. Furthermore, it was indicated that

Table 1
Increase in compressive strength of pumice LWAC by volume fraction of steel ber for
different densities [33].
LWA quantity
(kg/m3)

Density
(kg/m3)

28-day compressive
strength of plain
LWAC (MPa)

215
415
606
790

2030
1840
1630
1450

19.5
16.0
13.6
10.9

Increase in compressive
strength by volume
fraction of steel ber (%)
0.5

1.5

2.9
4
4.7
9.3

7.1
8.8
9.7
15.8

10.4
12.9
13.5
21.1

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M. Hassanpour et al. / Construction and Building Materials 37 (2012) 452461

35

Table 2
Properties of three types of bers [51].
Steel

Polypropylene

5
7
Straight
1.6
240
1.4
2500

25
500
Crimped
7.8
200
3.2
1500

15
100
Straight, round
0.9
8
8.1
800

Stress (MPa)

Length (mm)
Diameter (mm)
Shape
Density (g/cm3)
Modulus (GPa)
Elongation at break (%)
Tensile strength (MPa)

30

Carbon

25
20
15
10

L0

L0.5

L1.0

0
0

oil palm shell LWAC containing steel ber appears to be less sensitive to poor curing. The sensitivity decreases when the ber volume is more than 0.5%. Therefore, it can be concluded that steel
ber can be used as an alternative material for reducing the sensitivity of LWACs in poor curing conditions.
Among the several types of non-metallic bers, the effects of PP
ber on the properties of LWAC have been investigated. The test
results of some researchers [51,52,62,65,70,89] have shown that,
generally, if the PP bers are used in single form in the mixture
of a LWAC mixture, they have a relatively low effect on the
improvement of the compressive strength and may even reduce
it. Chen and Liu [51] investigated the effect of three types of bers
on the properties of expanded clay LWAC. The properties of these
bers are shown in Table 2. Among these bers, the PP ber does
not affect the compressive strength, while carbon ber has the
highest effect, up to 15%, and steel ber up to 10%.
5. Stressstrain diagram
The stressstrain curves of most LWACs for both normal and
high strength levels is typically linear to levels approaching 90%
or higher of the failure strength [30,45,90]. While for normal
strength NWC, the curves are roughly straight to about one-third
to one-half of the concretes ultimate strength [91]. For high
strength NWC it has been found to be 85% or more of the peak
stress [92]. Such high linearity of the stressstrain relationship is
attributed to the absence of micro-cracks at low load levels [93],
which causes sudden failure and high brittleness behavior of
LWAC. HSLWAC is more brittle than high strength NWC [48]. The
steel ber reinforced LWAC shows different behavior to plain
LWAC. Because of arresting of cracks by steel bers, concrete can
be subjected to very large deformations before total uncontrollable
collapse [52].
It was reported that the addition of steel bers to LWAC has little effect or no effect on the ascending part of the stressstrain
relationship while it has a signicant effect on the descending part
of the curve [33,70,78]. Similar effects were reported [86,95] on the
ascending and descending portion of the stressstrain curve of
high strength NWC reinforced by steel bers. However Ding and
Kusterle [5] found that at early age, ber reinforcement has a signicant effect on the ascending portion of the stressstrain curve.
In addition, it should be noted that the descending portion of the
stressstrain curve is an essential key element in the non-linear
analysis and design of reinforced concrete members under compression loads [94].
As can be seen in Figs. 1 [78] and 2 [33], by increasing the ber
volume fraction at a constant aspect ratio for LWAC, the slope of
the descending part of the stressstrain curve decreases. Fig. 3
[82] also shows a complete stressstrain curve of a LWAC made
of expanded clay LWA and different volume fractions of steel ber
(L = 30 mm and D = 0.5 mm). This gure clearly shows that the
steel ber reinforced LWACs have greater energy absorption (total
area under compressive stressstrain curve) under compression
than plain LWAC.

0.002

0.004

0.006

0.008

0.01

0.012

Strain (mm/mm)
Fig. 1. Typical stressstrain relationship of oil palm shell lightweight aggregate
concrete containing 0%, 0.5% and 1% steel ber (after Shagh et al. [78]).

Fig. 2. Typical stressstrain relationship of pumice lightweight aggregate concrete

containing 0%, 0.5%, 1% and 1.5% steel ber (after Duzgun et al. [33]).

Fig. 3. Typical stressstrain relationship of expanded clay lightweight aggregate

concrete containing 0%, 0.5%, 1% and 2% steel ber (after Campione et al. [82]).

Domagala [30] reported that a plain HSLWAC made with sintered y ash Pollytag as a coarse LWA does not have a descending
part in the stressstrain relationship. Consequently, explosive fracture was observed for this concrete. However, he demonstrated
that even with a small addition of steel ber (0.4% by volume fraction) completely eliminates the sudden failure of such concrete.
The PP bers can also be used in LWAC to prevent brittle behavior.
Libre et al. [70] reported that low strength pumice LWAC is brittle.
As can be seen in Fig. 4, they concluded that the minimum amount
of PP bers (L = 12 mm and D = 0.016 mm) to prevent brittle
behavior of such LWAC is about 0.4% by volume of concrete. In
addition, they reported that PP bers slightly enhance the energy
absorption while steel bers have a great effect on the energy
absorption of concrete under compression.

M. Hassanpour et al. / Construction and Building Materials 37 (2012) 452461

Fig. 4. Typical stressstrain relationship of pumice lightweight aggregate concrete

containing 0%, 0.2% and 0.4% polypropylene ber (after Libre et al. [70]).

The addition of bers to concrete matrices increases the compressive strain at the peak stress (e0) of concrete [33,82,86,95].
The test results of steel ber reinforced LWAC showed that the
strain at peak stress increases with increasing volume fraction
[30,64,78]. The increasing percentage of e0 value depends on the
type of LWA. For example, two types of LWA, namely, expanded
clay and pumice stone of similar compressive strength showed
an approximately 13% and 9% increase in e0 value by incorporating
1% volume of steel ber (L = 30 mm and aspect ratio = 60 mm) [64],
while oil palm shell LWAC with 1% volume of steel ber (L = 35 mm
and aspect ratio = 65 mm) showed 66% higher e0 value than the
plain ones. For this type of LWAC, the following equation was suggested to estimate the strain at peak stress [78]:
2

e0 1:18fc0:290:0002VL=D 

where e0 is strain at peak stress and expressed in parts per thousand, fc is the compressive strength in MPa, V is the ber volume
as a percentage, L is ber length in mm and D is the ber diameter
in mm.
6. Modulus of elasticity
The modulus of elasticity of LWAC is 2550% lower than NWC at
the same compressive strength [1]. Increasing the LWA content in
LWAC causes a lower modulus of elasticity [33,35,59]. The experimental test results reveal that, generally, the reinforcement of
LWACs by bers is not a suitable solution to enhance the modulus
of elasticity. It does not have a signicant effect on the modulus of
elasticity, especially, when the volume content of bers is low
[2,4]. In the case of steel ber, in destructive and standard test of
modulus of elasticity, reports [30,52,65,64,78] showed that steel ber can increase modulus of elasticity of LWAC between 6% and
30%. However, depending on the type of LWA and dosage of steel
ber, it may decrease modulus of elasticity up to 12% [52,64]. For
PP bers, the maximum increase in modulus of elasticity was reported up to about 4% [52,62]. However, with high volume of PP ber, modulus of elasticity decreases up to 12% [52].
In a non-destructive digital ultrasound test on prismatic specimens of a normal weight concrete incorporating 0.75% steel ber
(L = 50 mm and aspect ratio = 100) conducted by Kurugol et al.
[59], the modulus of elasticity increased by up to about 36%. The
same increase in the modulus of elasticity for a pumice stone
LWAC with similar mix proportions was also observed.

457

Domagala [30] demonstrated that the most important factor for

the effect of bers on the modulus of elasticity of LWAC is the
adhesion between the aggregate and the cement matrix. For example, the modulus of elasticity of steel ber (2% by volume) reinforced LWAC made with expanded clay LWA revealed
approximately 18% higher than plain concrete. While for pumice
stone it was approximately 12% lower. In the case of pumice, because of high water absorption and the rough texture, the bond
is very strong. Whereas, expanded clay may have much more regular and smooth grains and lower water absorption. In addition,
this LWA may be less homogenous. Therefore, concrete with expanded clay LWA may crack earlier during loading, even in the
range of stresses applied for the static modulus of elasticity testing.
Currently, steel ber as one of the components of concrete with a
high modulus of elasticity, plays its role by bridging mechanism.
In respect of the reason for reduction in the modulus of elasticity
of steel ber pumice LWAC, Campione et al. [64] explained that
this is probably due to the reduced compaction of the concrete.
They demonstrated that such a reduction in compaction is due to
the size and shape of the aggregate, which are not appropriate in
respect of the size of the ber used.
Gao et al. [43] reported the following equation for the prediction of modulus of elasticity of steel ber reinforced expanded clay
HSLWAC:

Ec Em 1 0:173V f Lf =Df

where Ec is the modulus of elasticity of steel ber reinforced LWAC;

Em is the modulus of elasticity of plain LWAC; Vf is ber volume
fraction and Lf/Df is the aspect ratio.
7. Splitting tensile strength
The tensile strength of concrete is much lower than the compressive strength, which is normally assumed to be equal to zero
and is not considered directly in design [96]. Li [32] demonstrated
that under tensile loading, cracks propagate rapidly at much lower
stress levels, which cause brittle failure in concrete in tension. Even
for reinforced concrete structural members, due to the low tensile
strength, the concrete cover cracks. For design purposes, BS 8110:
Part 2 [97] specied that for grade 25 LWAC and above, the design
shear strength should not exceed 80% of the value for NWC. The
tensile strength and the modulus of deformation are two important properties that inuence the safety, serviceability of concrete
elements and durability [98,99]. As specied by ASTM C 330 [100]
structural lightweight aggregate concretes need to have a minimum splitting tensile strength of 2.0 MPa.
The splitting tensile strength of LWAC can be considerably lower (up to 30%) than that of ordinary concrete of the same compressive strength [101]. To improve the tensile strength of concrete,
ber reinforced concrete and polymer concrete have been developed [32]. Fiber reinforced concrete has superior tensile properties
over plain concrete, particularly ductility [102]. In the case of
LWAC and semi-LWAC it has been reported that the addition of bers provide a signicant increase in the splitting tensile strength
[80,103]. By increasing the tensile strength of LWACs with ber
reinforcement, this improvement may be enough to avoid shrinkage even in LWAC with large drying shrinkage [104].
Previous studies [29,30,33,43,51,52,64,70,77,78,82] have shown
that the addition of steel ber in very low ratios (Vf 6 0.5%) to
LWAC, when compared to concrete without ber, provided a maximum increase in the splitting tensile strength in the range of 16
61%. For low volume fractions (0.5% < Vf 6 1%) and higher volume
fractions (1% < Vf 6 2%) a maximum increase in the splitting tensile
strength of about 19116% and 61118%, respectively, have been
reported.

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M. Hassanpour et al. / Construction and Building Materials 37 (2012) 452461

Compared to steel ber, the addition of PP bers in volume fractions lower than 1% does not signicantly increase the splitting
tensile strength of sanded-LWAC with only a maximum increase
of about 25% being reported [51,62,70]. However, a report conducted by Kayali et al. [52], showed that the splitting tensile
strength of LWAC made with sintered y ash (Lytag), and LWA as
coarse and ne aggregate, was signicantly increased by adding
PP bers. They reported that adding the PP ber at 0.285%, 0.56%
and 1% by volume of the concrete caused an increase of 59%, 94%
and 71% in the splitting tensile strength, respectively.
Chen and Liu [51] investigated the effect of three types of bers
(Table 2) and their blended form on the properties of expanded
clay HSLWAC. The amount of bers individually and in blended
form, was 1%. They reported that steel ber reinforced LWAC
showed the highest splitting tensile strength by increasing it by
about 24%. Carbon ber increased it by 16%, whereas the PP ber
resulted in a slight reduction of about 2%. However, they found that
hybrid bers have a signicantly higher positive effect on the compressive and splitting tensile strength. Among all the combinations
of these bers, a combination of carbon and steel bers provides
the best effects. This combination increased the splitting tensile
strength by up to 39%. They demonstrated that this may be due
to the fact that a combination of bers with different sizes and
types control different scales of cracking. Also, in NWC, as reported
by Yao et al. [105], the carbonsteel combination gave the highest
splitting tensile strength. The benets of using a combination of bers in concrete were also reported by other researchers
[67,72,106,107].
Generally, the splitting tensile strength of plain concrete is 8
14% of the compressive strength [8]. Although this ratio for LWACs
is usually lower than NWCs at the same compressive strength [44],
even with the inclusion of a low volume of ber (especially steel
ber) in LWAC, this ratio increases and falls in the range of normal
weight plain concrete. The test results of the splitting tensile
strength of different types of LWACs with normal strength concrete
[30,33,62,64,70,77,78] showed that the splitting tensile to compressive strength ratio of plain LWAC is in the range of 611%
while this ratio for concretes reinforced with low volume fraction
of bers (individually or as hybrid) ranged between 8% and
14.2%, which shows that the splitting tensile strength to compressive strength ratio of ber-reinforced LWAC is in the range of
NWCs.
Studies have shown that the effectiveness of steel ber on the
splitting tensile strength of LWAC depends on the amount of
LWA in the concrete. Balaguru and Foden [55] investigated the effect of steel bers at three different dosages on the properties of a
LWAC made with expanded shale as coarse and ne aggregate. The
ne aggregate consisted of either all LWA or a combination of LWA
and natural sand. They reported that the positive effect of ber
addition in concrete with a higher volume of LWA is more signicant. Such effectiveness was also observed for expanded polystyrene LWAC [77]. Furthermore, the use of hooked end ber and
the addition of silica fume created a better ber/concrete bond,
and, consequently a higher increment in tensile strength [29]. In
this regard, the usefulness of combined steel ber and pozzolanic
materials, because of the improved bonding strength, was recommended by Tsai et al. [61]. It should be noted that increased value
of splitting tensile strength of steel ber concrete has been shown
to be dependent on the specimen size. As Domagala [30] and
Balendran et al. [29] reported, smaller size samples show greater
improvement.
Gao et al. [43] suggested the following equation for predicting
of the splitting tensile strength of steel ber reinforced HSLWAC
made with expanded clay LWA:

F st 0:94F t 1  V f 3:02V f Lf =Df

where Fst is the splitting tensile strength of steel ber HSLWAC, Ft is

the splitting tensile strength of plain HSLWAC, Vf is the ber volume
fraction and Lf/Df is the aspect ratio.

8. Flexural strength
It was reported that the exural strength of plain LWAC is lower
than NWC of the same compressive strength [30]. The inclusion of
ber in LWAC increases its exural strength. The reason is that,
after matrix cracking, the bers will carry the load that the concrete sustained until cracking by the interfacial bond between
the bers and the matrix [43]. Therefore, the bers resist the propagation of cracks and do not fail suddenly, which causes an increase in the load carrying capacity. The increase in exural
strength due to the addition of ber in LWAC is higher than in
NWC [29,55].
As reported by Balendran et al. [29] the exural strength of concrete is size dependent. It decreases as the specimen size becomes
larger. The size effect is more prominent for materials with higher
brittleness. Therefore, the size effect is expected to be less for ber
reinforced LWAC due to the bers improving the ductility of LWAC.
For example, when the exural strength of HSLWAC was 5.9 MPa
for a specimen size of 50 mm (height)  100 mm (width)  200 mm
(span) this concrete showed 44% and 54% lower exural strength
for this specimen than bigger specimen sizes of 100 mm 
100 mm  400 mm  500 mm and 200 mm  100 mm  800 mm 
840 mm, respectively. While such a reduction for steel ber reinforced concrete was 18% and 30%, respectively. This shows that
ber reinforced concrete is much less sensitive to the size effect.
Previous research [29,30,33,43,52,64,70,78] have shown that by
adding steel ber to LWAC, the exural strength of standard specimens increased by about 638% for Vf 6 0.5%, 14182% for
0.5% < Vf 6 1% and 42120% for 1% < Vf 6 2%.
In the case of PP ber, the highest increase reported in the exural strength, of about 20%, was by incorporating 0.4% [70] and
0.56% [52] volume fraction. The test results for the study by Tanyildizi [40] showed that carbon ber (with an average length of
5 mm) in volume fraction of 0.5%, 1% and 2% increased the exural
strength of a whole pumice LWAC by about 13%, 32% and 7%,
respectively. It can be seen that by incorporating 2% of carbon ber,
the increase in exural strength is signicantly lower than 1%. This
may be due to the absence of good ber dispersion with high volumes of carbon ber in concrete. Mirza and Soroushian [16] investigated the effect of glass bers (L = 12 mm and D = 135 lm) on the
exural strength of totally perlite LWAC. The exural strength of
prismatic small specimens (38  38  160 mm) showed that
increasing the glass ber in volume fractions of 0.1250.75% significantly increases the exural strength of plain LWAC in the range of
about 64120%.
Mehta and Monteiro [2] demonstrated that the greatest advantage in ber reinforcement of concrete is the improvement in exural toughness. They showed that for a conventional aggregate
concrete, with the inclusion of 1.25% volume fraction of steel ber
increases the exural strength by about two times, the increase in
toughness was as much as 20 times, which clearly shows that the
improvement in the toughness is much higher than the improvement in exural strength. The test results of Libre et al. [70]
showed that the effectiveness of ber for improving the toughness
of LWAC is much higher than NWC. This may be due to the brittleness of LWAC being higher than NWC. Fig. 5 shows that increasing
the volume fraction of steel and PP bers individually or in combined form to pumice LWAC enhanced both the exural and
strength and toughness. Whereas, the increase in toughness for
all concretes containing steel ber is much higher than the increase in exural strength. For example, 1% volume fraction of steel

M. Hassanpour et al. / Construction and Building Materials 37 (2012) 452461

459

9. Conclusions

Fig. 5. Inuence of increasing ber volume (steel and polypropylene) on toughness

and exural strength of pumice lightweight aggregate concrete (after Libre et al.
[70]).

The inclusion of bers, particularly steel bers, into structural

lightweight aggregate concrete decreases its workability. For compensating reduction of workability, the use of higher dosage of
superplasticizer and ne aggregate and also the use of y ash in
concrete mixture are recommended. Steel ber increases the density of LWAC. The use of mineral admixtures, air-entraining admixtures and small steel ber content may compensate for the
increase in the density of LWAC.
Generally the inclusion of steel ber to LWAC increases the
compressive strength. But, inclusion of steel ber more than 2%
volume fraction may reduce it. However, a ber reinforced LWAC
have signicantly higher splitting tensile strength than plain LWAC
even at low volume of bers (especially steel ber). The use of
hooked-end steel ber and also cementitious materials in ber
reinforced LWAC, result in a higher improvement of tensile
strength. The positive effect of the addition of ber on the splitting
tensile strength of LWAC is more signicant in LWAC with a higher
volume of LWA. In addition, the inclusion of ber to LWAC increases its exural strength. The increase in exural strength due
to the addition of ber in LWAC is higher than NWC. The effectiveness of steel ber in exural strength seems to be signicantly
more pronounced than other types of bers. However, a combination of steel ber and non-metallic bers results in higher exural
strength than the usage of individual types of bers.
The inclusion of steel bers in LWAC signicantly affects the
descending part of the stressstrain curve. Even very low volume
fractions of steel ber help to prevent brittle failure of LWAC. However, the addition of steel bers to LWAC has little or no effect on
the ascending part of the stressstrain relationship. Therefore, in
most cases the modulus of elasticity of ber reinforced LWAC is
not much different than plain LWAC. The effectiveness of ber
for improving the toughness of LWAC is much higher than NWC.
A combination of steel ber and non-metallic bers results in better toughness.

References

Fig. 6. Effect of steel ber volume fraction and aspect ratio on exural toughness of
expanded clay lightweight aggregate concrete (after Gao et al. [43]).

ber increases the toughness of concrete by about 78 times while

the increase in exural strength was just three times. The combination of 1% volume fraction of steel ber and 0.4% of PP ber gave
the highest increase in the both toughness and exural strength.
However, the effectiveness of 0.2% of PP ber by steel ber does
not signicantly affect the exural strength and toughness. They
demonstrated that this might be due to the lower tensile strength
of PP ber and also the weaker bond between PP bers and the cement matrix.
Chen and Liu [51] also reported that the combination of carbon and steel bers (each one of 0.5% volume fraction) gave the
highest value for toughness index, as compared to 1% volume
fraction of a single type of each ber. Gao et al. [43] reported
that increasing the steel ber in expanded clay LWAC increased
its fracture toughness. In addition, as can be seen in Fig. 6, they
showed that a higher steel ber aspect ratio resulted in higher
exural toughness.

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