A numerical-experimental evaluation of beams composed of a steel frame with welded and conventional stirrups

Reinforced concrete structures are widely used in civil engineering projects around the world in different designs. Due to the great evolution in computational equipment and numerical methods, structural analysis has become more and more reliable, and in turn more closely approximates reality. Thus among the many numerical methods used to carry out these types of analyses, the finite element method has been highlighted as an optimized tool option, combined with the non-linear and linear analysis techniques of structures. In this paper, the behavior of reinforced concrete beams was analyzed in two different configurations: i) with welding and ii) conventionally lashed stirrups using annealed wire. The structures were subjected to normal and tangential forces up to the limit of their bending resistance capacities to observe the cracking process and growth of the concrete structure. This study was undertaken to evaluate the effectiveness of welded wire fabric as shear reinforcement in concrete prismatic beams under static loading conditions. Experimental analysis was carried out in order compare the maximum load of both configurations, the experimental load-time profile applied in the first configuration was used to reproduce the same loading conditions in the numerical simulations. Thus, comparisons between the numerical and experimental results of the welded frame beam show that the proposed model can estimate the concrete strength and failure behavior accurately.