Mechanical properties of polypropylene fiber-reinforced shotcrete based chromite flotation waste using a nondestructive testing method

This study examines the mechanical behavior and non-destructive assessment of shotcrete reinforced with polypropylene fibers (PPFs) and incorporating chromite flotation waste (CFW) as a partial substitute for fine aggregate. Shotcrete mixtures were prepared with four CFW replacement levels (0–30%) and four PPFs volume fractions (0–1%) and their compressive strength, splitting tensile strength and static modulus of elasticity were evaluated. Poisson's ratio and ultrasonic pulse velocity (UPV) were experimentally determined. The effect of fiber reinforcement and waste incorporation on the mechanical behavior was evaluated through statistical correlation, simple regression and multivariable predictive modeling approaches. The results showed that moderate PPFs contents (0.25–0.5%) generally enhanced compressive and tensile performance while excessive fiber dosage (1%) led to strength and stiffness reductions due to increased heterogeneity, fiber agglomeration and void formation at high CFW replacement levels. Increasing CFW content resulted in systematic reductions in UPV values with an average decrease of approximately 3–4% per 10% CFW replacement indicating changes in matrix continuity and internal structure. However, these UPV reductions were not directly proportional to losses in mechanical strength or elastic stiffness. Correlation analyses revealed weak to moderate relationships between UPV and mechanical properties confirming that UPV alone is insufficient to represent the complex behavior of fiber-reinforced, waste-based shotcrete systems. Simple UPV-based regression models exhibited limited predictive capability for both compressive strength (R2 ~ 0.16) and static modulus of elasticity (R2 ~ 0.002). In contrast, multivariable regression models incorporating normalized UPV, CFW replacement ratio and PPFs volume fraction together with their interaction terms, significantly improved prediction accuracy. The proposed models achieved high coefficients of determination (R2 ~ 0.86 for compressive strength and R2 ~ 0.97 for static elastic modulus) with substantially reduced root mean square error (RMSE) values. Finally, the findings demonstrate that UPV can be effectively used as a non-destructive indicator for estimating the strength and stiffness of PPFs reinforced shotcrete incorporating CFW only when material specific parameters are explicitly considered.