Shear assessment of compression flanges of structural concrete T-beams

Abstract

In T-beams the force transfer from the web into the flange has to be studied. The general design procedure is based on a strut-and-tie (or a stress field) model which comprises spreading compressive and transverse tensile forces. As is known, strut-and-tie models represent the force flow within a structural member at ultimate. This procedure is sufficient for design purposes and in general, leads to safe results. For the assessment of a structure it may be worthwhile to improve the accuracy. For this purpose both web and flange have to be looked at more in detail. An advanced method for the analysis of webs in shear is the Generalized Stress Field Approach [1]. This approach can be utilized for treating flanges, where the classical assumptions have to be adapted; in particular by considering the strain dependence of the concrete compressive strength and thus, defining a representative strain value. In the present contribution background and details of these aspects are given, and the corresponding calculation procedure is described. Theoretical results are compared with experimental data and show a reasonably good agreement. However, as the number of sufficiently documented tests is very limited no concluding findings are attained.