Buildings and other infrastructure should be designed to withstand impact loads in terrorist attacks or industrial catastrophes. Fibrous concrete is utilized in a variety of ways in the construction of structures to resist impact loads. Preplaced aggregate fibrous concrete (PAFC) has a different production method than traditional fibrous concrete. Although PAFC offers several benefits over standard fibers in the construction of protective structures, there are relatively few investigations on the behavior of PAFC when exposed to impact loads. This research investigated the impact response of PFAC with the combined action of steel fibers and glass fiber mesh (GFM). Twenty-two mixtures were prepared and divided into two groups in which there were fibrous and non-fibrous specimens. The specimens from the first group comprised various diameters (ratio of reinforcement surface to total sample surface) of GFM and were provided in two and four layers. The second group of specimens is the same as the first group, including a 3% dosage of steel fibers. All specimens were subjected to a drop-weight impact test and the key parameters examined were cracking and failure impact energies, ductility index and failure pattern. The results indicated that the incorporation of GFM increased the impact performance and impact ductility, where the retained impact energies and the ductility index increased by increasing the ratio of reinforcement surface (diameter) of GFM and its number of layers. However, the positive influence of SF in enhancing the impact performance was way higher than that of GFM. The use of 3% hooked-end SF improved the failure impact energy by more than 3000%, while the maximum improvement gained by using four layers of 150 mm diameter (full reinforcement surface) GFM was approximately 400%.
Keywords: concrete; failure; glass fiber mesh; grout injection; impact energy; steel fibers.