Trade Journals for the Concrete Industry

Reinforcing tunnel segments with steel fibres is gaining in significance particularly at an international level. This is mainly attributable to financial and logistical factors and yet, when compared with conventional reinforcement, steel fibre reinforced concrete can also have tech- nical advantages. These are, however, offset by drawbacks which must be taken into account during planning. For example, extensive labo- ratory testing is required and, due to the pronounced non-linear material behaviour of steel fibre reinforced concrete, numerical computa- tions are to be preferred. The boundary conditions of a given project can lead to additional conventional reinforcement being required, or else steel fibre reinforcement being ruled out entirely. Recommendations regarding the utilisation of steel fibre reinforced tunnel segments for specific project conditions are also given.