FIBER REINFORCED-CONCRETE - A NEW MATERIAL FOR MACHINE-TOOLS

As part of a continuing search for a suitable replacement material for the fabrication of structural components of a machine tool, the present study deals with concrete reinforced with discrete steel fibres of short length and small diameter. Various exploratory tests were conducted on a series of model lathe beds to evaluate the performance of fibre concrete. The results of these tests are presented and discussed in this paper. Test results indicate that a fibre concrete bed with a 3% volume fraction of fibres possesses adequate dimensional stability, strength and stiffness to justify its use as a replacement material. Fibre reinforced beds also exhibited dynamic properties quite comparable to those of ferrocement, a material which showed marked improvement over cast iron in an earlier investigation. Since, use of fibre concrete simplifies fabrication process, it appears to be more attractive than ferrocement.