BEHAVIOR OF RC BEAMS WITH WEB OPENING SUBJECTED TO PURE TORSION

Abstract

Many design engineers used to take many services ducts, such as air conditions, water supply, sewage piping, electrical and mechanical conduits, through the space below reinforced concrete (RC) beams forming the floor systems. Then to enhance aesthetics, a false ceiling needs to be provided below the ducts, reducing the clear height of stories, or increasing the total height of structures, particularly for multistoried buildings. For better use of space, such ducts can be taken through web openings in RC beams wherever possible, thereby reducing the overall height of the building. With a focus on a better understanding of the behavior of these beams under pure torsion, this paper presents an experimental study carried out on 23 RC beams with web openings that were tested under pure torsion. Several parameters are studied, such as the length, width (i.e., size), the eccentricity of the openings, and the longitudinal and transverse steel in the chord members. The experimental results indicated that the web opening greatly influences the torsional behavior of the reinforced concrete beams. This paper provides the initial basis for forthcoming experiments and future numerical simulations of RC beams with web openings under combined flexural-shear-torsional behavior that are primary goals in future studies.