The current study examines the effects of the deformation behaviour of cementitious material ductility on the seismic performance of shear-dominant coupling beams. Matrix ductility and reinforcement layouts comprise the main testing variables. Three short coupling beams with two different reinforcement arrangements and matrices are constructed and tested. They are subjected to cyclic loading under a suitable experimental set-up. All specimens are characterised by a shear span—depth ratio of 1.0. The reinforcement layouts consist of a classical scheme and diagonal scheme without confining ties. The effects of cement-based matrix ductility on crack patterns, failure modes, hysteretic characteristics and the ultimate shear load of the coupling beams are examined. The combination of a ductile cement-based matrix and steel reinforcement is found to result in improved energy dissipation capacity, simplification of reinforcement details, and damage-tolerant inelastic deformation behaviour. Test results show that high-performance hybrid fibre-reinforced cement-based composite (HPHFRCC) coupling beams behave better than normal reinforced concrete (RC) control beams. These results are evidenced by the tensile deformation capacity, damage tolerance and tensile strength of HPHFRCC material.
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