Investigation into shear properties of medium strength reinforced concrete beams

The shear contribution of transverse steel in reinforced concrete beams is generally assumed as independent of the concrete strength by most of the building codes. The shear strength of RC beams with web reinforcement is worked out by adding the individual contributions of concrete and stirrups. In this research 70 beams of medium strength concrete in the range of 52-54 MPa, compressive strength were tested in two sets of 35 beams each. In one set of 35 beams no web reinforcement was used, whereas in second set of 35 beams web reinforcement was used to check the contribution of stirrups. The values have also been compared with the provisions of ACI, Eurocode and Japanese Code building codes. The results of two sets of beams, when compared mutually and provisions of the building codes, showed that the shear strength of beams has been increased with the addition of stirrups for all the beams, but the increase is non uniform and irregular. The comparison of observed values with the provisions of selected codes has shown that EC-02 is relatively less conservative for low values of longitudinal steel, whereas ACI-318 overestimates the shear strength of RC beams at higher values of longitudinal steel. The Japanese code of JSCE has given relatively good results for the beams studied.