Investigation on the relationship between the steel ﬁbre distribution and the post-cracking behaviour of SFRC Shengli Zhang a,b , Changsuo Zhang b,⇑ , Lin Liao b a Key Lab of In-situ Property-improving Mining of Ministry of Education, Taiyuan University of Technology, Taiyuan, Shanxi, PR China b College of Mining Engineering, Taiyuan University of Technology, Taiyuan, Shanxi, PR China highlights  Effect of wall-effect, and ﬁbre orientation and content on tensile strength of SFRC.  MCST is a multi-axial cube splitting test used to get post-crack properties of SFRC.  An approach for the determination of ﬁbre orientation using MCST is proposed.  MCST method was veriﬁed to be a good method of determining the orientation of ﬁbre. article info Article history: Received 6 September 2018 Received in revised form 10 December 2018 Accepted 14 December 2018 Keywords: SFRC Post-cracking behaviour Fibre distribution Multi-axial cube splitting test Phase coefﬁcient abstract The post-cracking behaviour of steel ﬁbre reinforced concrete (SFRC) are signiﬁcantly inﬂuenced by the distribution of steel ﬁbre in the concrete, while steel ﬁbre distribution is further affected by wall-effect and ﬁbre content. A series of three-point bending tests, cube splitting tests, and Brazilian splitting tests were conducted to analyze the inﬂuence of wall-effect and ﬁbre content on the post-cracking tensile strength of SFRC. Furthermore, the inﬂuence of wall-effect and ﬁbre content on ﬁbre distribution was determined by conducting inductive tests on cubic SFRC specimens. To directly determine the relation- ship between ﬁbre content and orientation, and the post-cracking mechanical properties of SFRC, this paper proposes a multi-axial cube splitting test (MCST test). Furthermore, this paper also proposes a method which utilizes the MCST test to measure ﬁbre orientation based on the relationship between post-cracking peak load and toughness, and steel ﬁbre orientation. Therefore, MCST method can be adapted for using with any type of ﬁbre reinforced concrete, while the inductive test can only be used for concrete that is reinforced with metallic ﬁbre. The MCST method is veriﬁed by comparing the simi- larity of the ﬁbre orientations that were obtained using the inductive tests and MCST tests. Ó 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction The primary advantages of using ﬁbre reinforced concrete are increased tensile strength and improved toughness [1–6]. When a ﬁbre reinforced concrete cracks, the many ﬁbres within the con- crete naturally bridge across the crack. Furthermore, strands of ﬁbre whose orientation is parallel to the direction of tensile stress contribute the most to the strength of the cracked concrete. As the concrete begins to crack, the ﬁbres begin to relieve the stress that concentrates at the tip of the crack. Therefore, ﬁbres prevent the deformation of concrete by inhibiting the early propagation cracks. Due to the aforementioned phenomena, the content and orienta- tion of the steel ﬁbres, especially the ﬁbres in the areas surround- ing the cracks, are the main contributing factors to the post- cracking tensile strength of SFRC [4]. The theoretical analyses of the number of steel ﬁbres present in the cross-section of a dam- aged SFRC and the effect of the orientation of ﬁbres on the residual strength of SFRC were conducted by [7–9] and [3,10,11], respec- tively. In practice, the steel ﬁbre content can easily be controlled, while the orientation cannot be controlled. Steel ﬁbre orientation is inﬂuenced not only by ﬁbre characteristics [12–17], but more importantly by the shape of the specimen mould, ﬂuidity of the matrix, and method of inclusion (casting, stirring, and vibrating) [18,19]. These factors cause the uneven distribution of steel ﬁbres within the various SFRC specimen shapes, therefore this uneven distribution causes the resultant tensile strengths to differ. Simi- larly, an SFRC specimen that has been tested from different direc- tions exhibits different mechanical properties. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2018.12.081 0950-0618/Ó 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. ⇑ Corresponding author. E-mail address: zhangchangsuo@tyut.edu.cn (C. Zhang). Construction and Building Materials 200 (2019) 539–550 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Construction and Building Materials journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/conbuildmat