Transverse Stirrup Configurations in RC Wide Shallow Beams Supported on Narrow Columns

This paper addressed the influence of stirrup configurations in wide beams on the effectiveness of stirrups in contributing to shear resistance as a ratio of the nominal shear stirrup strength. The evaluation was made by testing 16 continuous, wide, shallow, reinforced, concrete beams supported on interior narrow columns at their centers and simply supported at the ends. The 16 beams were composed of: three beams without stirrups, six beams having a constant amount of stirrups with either two-leg or four-leg configuration, and seven other beams with various configurations to verify the trend. The general trend is that reducing the transverse spacing of stirrups improves the stirrup efficiency to resist shear forces. For beams with a constant amount of stirrups, four-leg configuration showed a high increase in its efficiency to resist shear force over stirrups with two-leg configuration. Although code design equations assume that stirrups are fully effective, it was evident that wide shallow beams reinforced with two-leg stirrups were susceptible to becoming shear deficient if transverse spacing was not accounted for. On the basis of findings of this study, guidelines for computing the stirrup contribution in shear resistance were proposed and verified by comparisons with tested beams from the present study and a previous study by Serna-Ros et al.