FATIGUE RELIABILITY OF FERROCEMENT SLABS

In the design of ferrocement elements, fatigue strength may be a major consideration, particularly when the actual loading is predominantly cyclic in nature. A simple probabilistic approach to fatigue-strength studies for ferrocement slabs is presented, supplemented by the relevant statistics obtained from a preliminary experimental program. Unlike conventional fatigue-strength studies where the specimens are cyclically loaded to failure, the approach employed here involves obtaining the residual strength of the specimen after it has been subjected to some predetermined number of cycles of loading n. Probability of failure curves against specified cracking and ultimate strength, conditioned on different values of n, are presented. Within the load range considered, the results show that ferrocement possesses good fatigue properties.