Study on self-compacting polyester fiber reinforced concrete and strength prediction using ANN

The characteristics of self-compacting concrete (SCC) made with fly ash and reinforced with polyester fibers were investigated in this research. Polyester fibers of 12 mm long and 15 micrometer diameters were utilized in M40 grade SCC mixtures at five different volume fractions 0.025%, 0.05%, 0.075%, 0.1%, 0.3% as a fiber reinforcement. To understand the influence of polyester fibers on passing ability, flowability, segregate resistance the J ring, L box, V funnel, slump flow and U box tests were performed. Polyester fibers have a direct influence, with a maximum of 0.075% polyester fibers producing excellent characteristics. ANN models were constructed using the testing data as inputs to anticipate the fresh and hardened characteristics as targeted outputs. The research revealed that R2 values ranging from 0.900 to 0.997 appears to be a good correlation. The performance of ANN models and regression models for predicting the new characteristics of SCC is also evaluated.