Analysis of shear strength of complementary mechanisms trends in reinforced concrete beams

Abstract

abstract: The study of shear failure in concrete beams is one of the subjects growing in importance due to both the recent reformulations, and increasingly higher cross-section depths used. For instance, the recent updates in the ACI 318 (2019) shows the need to incorporate the size effect in the design of reinforced concrete elements. In this study, the same database adopted by the ACI-ASCE Committee DAfStb 445-D has been used to calculate shear strength, with and without the consideration of size effect, i.e., the design prescribed by ACI 318 (2014), ACI 318 (2019), Frosch et al. (2017), and the ABNT NBR 6118 (2014). Later these predictions are compared with test results. A dispersion analysis has outlined the trends regarding compressive strength, span to depth ratio, longitudinal reinforcement ratio and beam depth. Every variable was discussed per interval, delineating the causes related to the observable trends. Regarding the most prominent influences (effective depth and longitudinal reinforcement ratio), the approaches considering them directly through factors had provided results with no appreciable trends, with lower coefficients of variation (COV) and substantially more conservative for higher cross-section depths. As the Brazilian code does not consider both, a correction factors, determined by a two-step regression analysis on these parameters to adjust this design, are briefly introduced.