Behaviour of Reinforced Concrete Beams with Confined Concrete Related to Ultimate Bending and Shear Strength

摘要

This research is to investigate the behaviour of over-balanced High Strength Reinforced Concrete Beams with the compression zone confined with spiral/helical steel reinforcements. The study covered beam behaviour with respect to flexural strength, shear strength, deflection and cracking related to confined concrete. Six 200mm (width) × 300mm (depth) × 3000mm (length) Reinforced Concrete (RC) Beams, the first three beams incorporating steel ratio of 1.42ρb and the remaining 1.64ρb were tested under a four point static load test. The confinement of the concrete was carried out using spiral reinforcements of diameter 6mm and yield stress of 406N/mm~2 with pitches of 50mm and 100mm. Measurements of deflection, cracking, and strains on both main reinforcements and concrete of the beams were taken. At the same level of stress, beams with confined concrete strained less than control beams without confinement for both tensile strain at the main steel reinforcement and compressive strain across the compression zone of concrete. Deflections of beams with helical confinement were less than the control beams. All beams failed in shear/flexural mode and gave fair warning against failure, more specifically beams with 1.42ρb, which is not normally associated with shear-type failure of beams which are over reinforced. The early shear failure prevented the beams from achieving its full utilisation of the ultimate strength. It is recommended that for over-reinforced confined concrete beams, the shear strength of beams should be based on using the diagonal compressive strut angle (θ) of more than 22 degrees recommended in Eurocode 2 (EC2), hence giving the beam higher safety factor against shear failure. All samples exhibited flexure and shear cracks in a manner which gave a good warning against failure. The ratio of the failure load to the theoretical ultimate load for shear ranged between 0.98 and 1.25 while the ratio of the failure load to the ultimate flexural load ranged between 1.00 and 1.25. Because of the early shear failure, the effects of spiral spacing could not be well identified.