Experimental Study and Shear Strength Prediction for Reactive Powder Concrete Beams

Abstract

Eighteen reactive powder concrete (RPC) beams subjected to monotonic loading were tested to quantify the effect of a novel cementitious matrix materials on the shear behavior of longitudinally reinforced RPC beams without web reinforcement. The main test variables were the ratio of the shear span-to- effective depth (a/d), the ratio of the longitudinal reinforcement (ρw), the percentage of steel fibers volume fractions (Vf) and the percentage of silica fume powder (SF). A massive experimental program was implemented with monitoring the concrete strain, the deflection and the cracking width and pattern for each RPC beam during the test at all the stages of the loading until failure. The findings of this paper showed that the addition of micro steel fibers (Lf/Df = 13/0.2) into the RPC mixture did not dramatically influence the initial diagonal cracking load whereas it improved the ultimate load capacity, ductility and absorbed energy. The shear design equations proposed by Ashour et al. and Bunni for high strength fiber reinforced concrete (HSFRC) beams have been modified in this paper to predict the shear strength of slender RPC beams without web reinforcement and with a/d ≥ 2.5. The predictions of the modified equations are compared with Equations of Shine et al., Kwak et al. and Khuntia et al. Both of the modified equations in this paper gave satisfied predictions for the shear strength of the tested RPC beams with COV of 7.9% and 10%. Keywords: Beams, Ductility, Crack width, Absorbed energy, Reactive powder concrete, Steel fibers