Shear mechanism of steel fiber reinforced concrete deep coupling beams

Deep coupling beams are more prone to suffer brittle shear failure. The addition of steel fibers to seismic members such as coupling beams can improve their shear performance and ductility. Based on the test results of steel fiber reinforced concrete(SFRC) coupling beams with span-to-depth ratio between 1.5 and 2.5 under lateral reverse cyclic load, the shear mechanism were analyzed by using strut-and-tie model theory, and the effects of the span-to-depth ratio, compressive strength and volume fraction of steel fiber on shear strengths were also discussed. A simplified calculation method to predict the shear capacity of SFRC deep coupling beams was proposed. The results show that the shear force is mainly transmitted by a strut-and-tie mechanism composed of three types of inclined concrete struts, vertical reinforcement ties and nodes. The influence of span-to-depth ratio on shear capacity is mainly due to the change of inclination angle of main inclined struts. The increasing of concrete compressive strength or volume fraction of steel fiber can improve the shear capacity of SFRC deep coupling beams mainly by enhancing the bearing capacity of compressive struts or tensile strength of the vertical tie. The proposed calculation method is verified using experimental data, and comparative results show that the prediction values agree well with the test ones.