Design oriented shear strength prediction model of UHPFRC beams

Abstract

The application of Ultra-high performance fiber reinforced concrete (UHPFRC) to beams can effectively improve their strength and ductility properties. At present, there are more shear test studies on UHPFRC beams, but few theoretical studies on their strength calculation method. The fibers in UHPFRC can inhance the strength of the beams, and how to quantify the fibers’ contribution to the total strength is a research difficulty. Firstly, the shear strength database including 197 UHPFRC beam specimens is created. The key characteristics determining the shear strength, namely fiber volume fraction, stirrup configuration, and shear-span ratio, are determined by evaluating the test results. Then, considering the effects of the factors above, a truss-arch model is developed. The arch shear strength is determined by utilizing the shear deformation coordination of the arch compression structs and truss compression structs. Superimposing the shear strengths of the arch and truss models yields the shear strength of UHPFRC beams. Finally, the accuracy and reliability of the proposed method are assessed using the test database and compared to existing shear strength calculations. The study findings demonstrate that the mean value of the calculated to observed shear strength ratios produced by the suggested technique is 1.10, with a coefficient of variation of 0.28, indicating that the proposed method has superior calculation accuracy and reliability than existing methods.