Crack distribution in fibrous reinforced concrete tensile prismatic bar

The behavior of fibrous concrete containing conventional steel reinforcement under axial tension is analyzed. The current study reveals that, while distances between cracks in plain concrete are equal, this is not the case for fibrous concrete. It is shown that the crack patterns in conventionally reinforced concrete with and without fibers are qualitatively different, even when distribution of fibers is uniform. The paper proposes a model for the behavior of a reinforced fibrous concrete bar subjected to increasing axial tension load. The model was verified against experimental results from two different sources. Based on the proposed model, an algorithm is presented to calculate the tensile forces that cause cracking and to determine the intervals between the cracks.