Flexural Strength and Stiffness of High Strength Concrete Beams with Exposed Main Steel

Abstract

In a number of previous publications, results were reported for a series of extensive and carefully conducted tests on large scale reinforced concrete (R.C.) beams with various extents of loss of concrete cover and exposure of main reinforcement along their spans, with such areas of simulated damage being located within their regions which are dominated by either shear or flexure. These tests on R.C. beams made with normal strength concrete have covered a wide range of first order beam design parameters, with their results used to verify the generality of various theoretical models. In the present paper, much attention will be devoted to various structural characteristics (such as ultimate strength, flexural stiffness, etc.) of similar damaged R.C. beams with the proviso that, instead of the previously used normal strength concrete, the beams are made with high strength concrete. No such results (for high strength R.C. beams) have previously been reported in the public domain.