175% Higher Strain Capacity
Enhanced ductility makes infrastructure less resistance to natural hazard damage
One of the unique properties of UHPC is its ability to undergo strain hardening behavior. That means that the material does not break upon first cracking. Rather, it continues to undergo more and more cracking and in the process it exhibits ductility (the ability to deform without catastrophic failure). The material property that measures UHPC ductility is the localization strain. The figure below shows how the tensile behavior of UHPC experimentally measured and the localization strain identified.
The unique striations on the surface of our fibers greatly enhance the localization strain. Multiple test programs have shown this. The figures below show the results from two different test programs.
Comparison between UHPC reinforced with HiPer steel fiber and competing steel fibers. There is a 175% increase in the localization strain.
Compare the performance of UHPC with 2% steel fiber dosage (Type X HiPer versus competing fibers). At 2% dosage there is more than a 200% increase in locatlization strain compared to the competing steel fiber. At 1% dosage, HiPer fibers provide a localization strain that is comparable to that obtained with 2% by the competing fiber.