Shear strength of reinforced concrete beams with compression zone confinement within the shear span

Abstract EN

This paper discusses the behavior and strength of reinforced concrete beams with additional stirrups in the compression zone.

seven reinforced concrete beams, 150 mm (width) x 300 mm (depth) x 3400 mm (length) with tension steel ratio 1.5% were tested under four points static load test.

the additional stirrups consisted of 6 mm diameter with yield stress of 321 N / mm 2.

the tested beams were identical except for additional stirrups spacing and shapes.

comparison with some building codes is presented.

the ultimate load of the beam with only short links replacing the regular stirrups was only 11% lesser than that of the reference beam.

although the additional links exhibit small effect to the shear strength of the beams, it did help with the failure ductility.

the strength predicted for the reference beam by the Eurocode was the most conservative with predicted shear strength, higher by 139% than the experimental results followed by the ECP code by 83%.