Shear Capacity and Failure Behavior of Steel-Reinforced High Ductile Concrete Beams

The shear behavior of six high ductile fiber reinforced concrete (HDC) beams is studied to investigate the influence of shear-span ratio and HDC mechanical property on the improvement of the shear failure mode and shear capacity of short beams. Four steel-reinforced high ductile concrete beams (SHDC) beams with different shear span ratios are tested under concentrated load at midspan. To study the effect of stirrups and steel on the shear capacity of short beams, two additional specimens without steel but one including stirrups are investigated. The main aspects of SHDC beams are discussed in detail, such as failure mode, deformability, and shear capacity. Test results show that the SHDC short beams keep high residual bearing capacity and great integrity when suffering from large deformation. It is revealed that HDC increased the shear ductility and improved the shear failure mode of short beams. A comparison with the shear equations of Chinese YB9082-2006 shows that the Chinese Code equation provides conservative estimation for HDC beams. This study proposes modifications to the equation for predicting the shear capacity of HDC beams.