Shear database for reinforced and prestressed beams made with fiber reinforced concrete

A total number of 215 structural elements were used to prepare a complete database to analyze the shear behavior and the influence of each parameter on shear out of 363 elements of the experimental database. 148 elements were eliminated for various reasons. Thus, the following items were removed: those with different failure modes to shear, those beams which are not known in some detail, also the beams containing a mixture of more than one fiber type, those for which values of strength are not available and all those elements with ratios a/d smaller than 2.5, where the arching action is dominant [1]. The database is made up of elements from databases of the University of Brescia and of RILEM, in addition to all the shear tests carried out within the Brite/Euram project [2], beams tested by Dupont & Vandewalle [3], other beams [4] and the tests presented in the Ph.D. thesis of Cuenca [5]. The input parameters used were: the shear span-to-depth ratio (a/d); the effective depth (d); the concrete cylinder compressive stress (fc); the residual flexural tensile strength (fR3) corresponding to a crack mouth opening displacement CMOD=2.5 mm, according to EN 14651 [6]; the longitudinal reinforcement ratio (ρl); the average stress acting on the concrete cross-section for an axial force due to prestressing actions (σc); the amount of steel fibers (kg/m3) and transverse reinforcement area per unit length (Asa/s). The output value was the safety margin (SM) obtained as Vtest/Vtheo (the shear test value divided by the shear theoretical value). The theoretical shear (Vtheo) was calculated for each of the beams according to three calculation codes: the Spanish Standard EHE-08 [7], the RILEM approach [8] and the first complete draft of Model Code 2010 [9].