TITLE:
Factorial Experimental Design to Study the Effects of Layers and Fiber Content on Concrete Flexural Behavior
AUTHORS:
Dumbiri H. Odia
KEYWORDS:
Experimental Design, Concrete Flexural Strength, Factorial Design of Experiments, Concrete Fibers, Concrete Layers
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Civil Engineering,
Vol.13 No.1,
March
16,
2023
ABSTRACT: Experimentation has come a long
in helping researchers achieve breakthroughs in their different scientific areas and engineering happens to
be one of those areas with the most impact from experimental advancement. The
need for valid experimental results free from biases and confounding
conclusions has prompted the development of new experimental techniques that
takes consideration of all applicable factor and combinations in providing
answers on a research topic, and the Factorial Experimental design credited to
Sir Ronald Fisher is one technique yielding highly valid results. This paper
uses the factorial design of experiments to research the flexural impact of
polyvinyl acetate fiber and layered concrete in construction. The experiment
considered two levels of fiber contents and two levels of layers, and prepared
samples with all combinations of the variable factors. The samples were tested
after 7 days from casting for flexural strength and an advance statistical
analysis was performed on the flexural responses of the samples using R-program. The results
from the analyses revealed the significance of the variables to the flexural strength of the samples, as well as their
interactions. The experiment concluded that based on the number of layers and
fiber content used for the experiment, casting concrete in layers does have a
significant negative effect on the flexural strength of concrete, and the
failure pattern of concrete members under flexural load in evidently influenced
by the material composition of the concrete, and that it can be evidently influenced
by casting the concrete in layers.