Mechanical Properties of Fiber-Reinforced Concrete Made with Basalt Filament Fibers

Fiber-reinforced concrete (FRC) has become a viable new material used in various constructions such as building pavements, large industrial floors, and runways. In this research, basalt chopped fibers in filament form were used to develop an FRC material called basalt fiber-reinforced concrete (BFRC) to study the possible improvement in the 28-day compressive strength and modulus of rupture, though the latter one is more important for the construction of pavements, industrial floors, and runways. The basalt fiber specimens were cast using basalt filament fibers of three different lengths and three different amounts. Clumping of fibers at high fiber amounts caused mixing and casting problems. These problems become even more severe when long fibers are used at the high fiber dosage amount. The results indicated that 36-mm-long chopped basalt filament fiber and a fiber amount of 8 kg/m3 are optimum for achieving high performance in both the compressive strength and modulus of rupture. This paper discusses the test matrix and test results obtained from various BFRC and plain concrete specimens.