Shear behaviour of reinforced concrete beams using treated recycled coarse aggregates and steel fibres

Abstract

This paper has made an attempt to investigate the shear behaviour of reinforced concrete beams made of treated recycled coarse aggregate (RCA) experimentally after adding three different volume fractions of hook end steel fibres, i.e., 0.5, 1 and 1.5%. The treatment method adopted for strengthening recycled aggregate concrete (RAC) was pre-soaking recycled aggregates in cement and fly ash slurry. The percentage of replacement of treated RCA was kept constant at 60%. Simply supported RC beams made of treated RCA without stirrups after incorporating steel fibres were tested under an incremental four-point loading mechanism. The results from the experiment showed that the first crack load and ultimate load ascended as we increased the steel fibre content. Maximum deflection at mid-span deflection reduced with an increase in fibre content. The failure mode has shifted from shear to flexure by increasing the steel fibre content. Hence, steel fibres can make up for the lack of transverse reinforcement during shear.