Improved Shear Strength Equation for Concrete Wide Beams

Abstract

An improved shear strength equation is proposed that considers transverse reinforcement spacing and support conditions for concrete wide beams. Eighteen specimens were fabricated to examine the influence of transverse reinforcement spacing, the number of transverse shear reinforcement, and support width on shear capacity. From the test results, a shear strength equation is proposed and used to evaluate the shear strength of 23 specimens from previous studies and 18 from this study. For the 41 specimens, the proposed shear strength equation results had a mean of 1.16 and a standard deviation of 0.16. It showed that the proposed shear strength equation can predict shear strength reasonably well for concrete wide beams.

Keywords

• shear reinforcement
• shear strength
• reinforced concrete
• wide beam
• transverse shear reinforcement spacing