Journals Proceedings

Abstract

There are several alternatives to the traditional stirrups in reinforced concrete beams. This study focuses on providing other options other than the stirrups. Due to the unsafe mode of shear failure in reinforced concrete beams, designers may find themselves reluctant to use higher factor of safety. Shear failure in reinforced concrete beams is one of the most undesirable modes of failure due to its rapid progression. This sudden type of failure made it necessary to explore more effective ways to design these beams for shear. The cost and safety of shear reinforcement in reinforced concrete beams led to the study of other alternatives. In this study five different shear reinforcements are used to study the effect of each type of shear reinforcement on the shear performance of reinforced concrete beams. Five types of beams were prepared, each with different type of shear reinforcements. The five different types of shear reinforcement are; standard stirrups and the sample is considered here as the control sample, welded swimmer bars, bolted swimmer bars, U-Link swimmer bars, and spliced swimmer bars. Beam shear strength as well as beam deflection are the main two parameters considered in this study. The swimmer bar system is a new type of shear reinforcement. It is a small inclined bars, with its both ends bent horizontally for a short distance and welded, bolted, or spliced to both top and bottom flexural steel reinforcement. Welding swimmer bars to longitudinal flexural steel reinforcement in reinforced concrete beams is considered undesirable in civil engineering practice for many reasons including quality control of the weld, safety, and long term effect. Splicing and bolting swimmer bars with the longitudinal flexural steel bars is a solution to the welding problem Special shapes of swimmer bars are used for this purpose. Regardless of the number of swimmer bars used in each inclined plane, the swimmer bars form plane-crack interceptor system instead of bar-crack interceptor system when stirrups are used. The results of the five tested beams will be presented and discussed in this study. Also the deflection of the beams due to the gradual applied load is monitored and discussed. Cracks will be monitored and recorded during the beam test as the applied load increases.