Structural behaviour of basalt fibre reinforced glass concrete slabs

Small-scale slab tests at ambient and elevated temperatures, conducted on horizontally unrestrained simply supported slabs, are presented in this paper. The aim of this research is to investigate the structural behaviour of concrete produced from different percentages of glass sand (20, 40, and 60 % by weight) and reinforced with different volume fractions of basalt fibre (0, 0.1, 0.3, and 0.5 % by total mix volume), when subjected to large vertical displacement. The results were also compared against similar structural members with concrete that did not contain glass or fibres. The results showed that the fracture of the reinforcement was the mode of failure for all the slabs and the load carrying capacity was enhanced above the theoretical yield-line load. For the slabs tested at elevated temperatures, the enhancement due to membrane action was at least twice as high as that recorded in the ambient temperature tests. The slabs with higher glass sand and basalt fibre content also exhibited greater enhancement and failed at higher displacement. The results also showed that the enhancement in the concrete with glass aggregate and basalt fibre was greater than that in concrete that contained no glass or fibre by up to 26 and 31 % at ambient temperature and in fire respectively.