Shear Behavior of Fiber-Reinforced Self-Consolidating Concrete Slender Beams

Abstract

A detailed investigation on the shear behavior of fiber-reinforced self-consolidating concrete (FR-SCC) beams was carried out. FR-SCC mixtures were designed to study the influence of: a) fiber type; b ) fiber anchorage; c) fiber aspect ratio; and d) fiber content on the shear performance of reinforced concrete slender beams without stirrups, and to determine the suitability of using fibers to satisfy minimum shear reinforcement requirements. SCC was found to be particularly suited for fiber addition owing to its mixture design and fundamental rheological characteristics. It was observed that the short discrete fibers could significantly improve the shear behavior of reinforced SCC slender beams and beams incorporating 1% steel fiber addition could achieve a 128% increase in shear capacity over that of the reference beam without fibers. Furthermore, the FR-SCC beams performed better under shear loading than conventional fiber-reinforced concrete (FRC) beams. The experimental results obtained on 13 FR-SCC slender beams indicate the possibility of using fibers as minimum shear reinforcement. Finally, a design equation capable of estimating the shear capacity of both normal and FRC beams is proposed and its accuracy is established using experimental data from the present study along with other data in the literature.