A study on torsional behaviour of rectangular reinforced concrete beams with U-shaped encased welded wire mesh

Abstract

Concrete is one type of composite material composed of fine and coarse aggregate bonded together with cementitious paste that is durable in its hardened state over time. It has now become an important and widely used building material. However, it possesses a brittleness material property in tension even though it is strong in compression. Here the study is restricted to the concrete subjected to torsion phenomena. In the past decades, various ways have been explored to improve the ductile material strength property of the concrete matrix in proposed new construction. Reinforced concrete is constructed by using conventional reinforcements; prestressed concrete is an example of that. Also, various types of fibers in the form of discrete nature are applied to improve the tensile strength capacity of concrete in proposed construction, and retrofitting techniques using various materials are exercised to strengthen the existing structures. Hence, remarkable research in the literature on fiber reinforced concrete and on FRP techniques has been carried out. However, welded wire mesh with high yield strength can be encased in concrete members to improve composite material property and avoid abrupt cracking with an increase in torque carrying capacity of plain and reinforced concrete beam specimens used for proposed construction.