Predicting the pullout response of inclined hooked steel fibers

Steel fiber reinforced concrete (SFRC) is symptomatically an anisotropic material due to the random orientation of fibers within the cement matrix. Fibers under different inclination angles provide different strength contributions at a given crack width. Therefore the pullout response of inclined fibers is a paramount subject to understand and quantify SFRC behavior, particularly in the case of fibers with hooked ends, which are currently the most widely used. Several experimental results were considered to validate the approach and to assure its suitability on distinct material properties and boundary conditions. The good agreement on predicting the pullout behavior of these fibers encourages its use towards a new concept of design and optimization of SFRC.