EXPERIMENTAL STUDY ON STATIC SHEAR BEHAVIOR OF HIGH STRENGTH CONCRETE BEAMS AS COMPARED WITH NORMAL STRENGTH CONCRETE BEAMS.

In the current study, nineteen reinforced concrete beams were tested to investigate the static shear behavior of high strength concrete beams as compared with normal strength concrete beams. The concrete compressive strength of the beams at the age of the tests ranged from 300 to 800 kg/cm2 . The parameters of the study included the concrete strength, shear span to depth ratio a/d, the amount of shear reinforcement (stirrup spacing S) and the inclination of the stirrups with the horizontal axis of the beam. The details of the beam specimens, material properties, instrumentation and the testing procedure are described in this paper. The test results are presented and discussed, and the influence of each design parameter is investigated. Furthermore, parametric analysis was carried out to deduce equations for predicting the cracking and ultimate shear strength and the ratio between them for both normal and high strength concrete beams. Test results are also compared with different existing approaches.