Shear behavior of concrete beams pre-stressed with carbon fiber reinforced polymer tendons

Abstract

This article presents experimental and numerical studies on the shear behavior of reinforced concrete beams pre-stressed with carbon fiber reinforced polymer tendons. A total of 23 beams were tested to analyze the failure mode and shear performance of pre-stressed concrete beams. Experimental results revealed that there were two typical shear failure modes, that is, shear compression failure and inclined compression failure. Next, the experimental and numerical results were used to explore factors influencing the failure mode and the shear behavior of the concrete beams, including the type of pre-stressing tendons, stirrup ratio, shear span–depth ratio, number of pre-stressing tendons, and their initial pretension levels. It is demonstrated that shear span–depth ratio and stirrup ratio are the two main determinants of the failure mode and shear capacity of the concrete beams pre-stressed with carbon fiber reinforced polymer tendons. However, the bonding conditions of the pre-stressing carbon fiber reinforced polymer tendons have no significant effect on the shear capacity of the pre-stressed concrete beam.