Uniaxial tension-compression fatigue behavior and fiber bridging degradation of strain hardening fiber reinforced cementitious composites

This study aims to clarify experimentally the uniaxial tension-compression fatigue behavior and fiber bridging stress degradation of strain hardening fiber reinforced cementitious composites. During fatigue cyclic loading, tensile bridging stress corresponding to the preset maximum tensile strain was recorded with the number of cycles in order to observe the degradation of the tensile bridging stress. Major bridging stress degradation was observed before reaching 1000 cycles, and microscopic observation of the failure surface confirmed severe fiber damages. Fitting curves of bridging stress degradation are proposed with the idea of Weibull distribution. The preliminary results of the current study with a limited number of specimens are compared with those of a uniaxial tensile fatigue study, and the differences of bridging stress degradations are discussed. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.