Tailor Made Concrete Structures Walraven & Stoelhorst (eds) 2008 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN

BN 978-0-415-47535-8

A model for SFRC beams without shear reinforcement

P. Colajanni, A. Recupero & N. Spinella
University of Messina, Messina, Italy

ABSTRACT: In this paper a physical model, for the prediction of ultimate shear strength of Steel Fibers Reinforced Concrete (SFRC) beams is developed from the plastic Crack Sliding Model (CSM) introduced by Zhang (1997), based on the hypothesis that cracks can be transformed into yield lines. In this work the effectiveness factors are recalculated for SFRC beams and some further developments are introduced in the CSM, taking into account the fundamental post cracking tensile strength contribute of SFRC. The proposed model is validate by a large set of tests collected in literature and some numerical analyses were carried out to show the influence of fibers on the failure beams mode.

INTRODUCTION

Numerous empirical or semi empirical relations have been suggested for the prediction of the ultimate shear capacity of SFRC beams without stirrups. Some of them are obtained on the basis known relations proposed in literature for plain concrete beams, providing an additional shear strength contribute that depends on the amount and characteristics of the fibers and the mechanical properties of the concrete matrix. This category of design equations incorporates fiber properties, which generally is expressed as fiber factor F = Vf (lf /df ), where is the fiber bond factor; Vf is the fiber volume percentage; and lf /df is the fiber aspect ratio (ratio between length and diameter fiber). Semi empirical models are usually generated by a regression analysis of SFRC beam test data for a few fiber types and volume percentages, but the number of beam tests does not cover a wide enough range of fiber types and volume percentages. An appealing alternative approach is provided by the plastic theory, that has long been applied with good success to reinforced concrete members (Nielsen 1999). Based on this theory and on limit analysis concepts many rational formulations have been proposed in literature to predict the shear capacity of plain concrete beams. The usual plastic solution assumes that stress fields transfer the load to supports by satisfying the yield material criteria, but recent works (Zhang 1997; Vecchio 2000a) on plain concrete shear problems shown that slips along the crack can delay or prevent the development of direct strut action spanning between the loading and support points of beams. These certainly imply that sliding displacements can

occur along the crack and the failure crack can origin from a generic section between loading and support point. This failure mechanism is typical of slender beams and it is taken into account by plastic theory in the CSM (Zhang 1997). In this paper the formulation of CSM proposed by Zhang to determine the ultimate shear strength of plain concrete beams without stirrups is, firstly, improved to evaluate the shear capacity of short beams, then is extended to fibrous concrete members. The proposed formulation is validated on a large database collected in literature and a comparison with several known relationships is presented. Finally a set of numerically analyses, carried out using the proposed model, are presented showing the effect of steel fibers in changing the mode of failure.

CRACK SLIDING MODEL

In the application of the theory of plasticity to structural problems, reinforcement is assumed to resist forces in the axial direction only with yield stress fy . Concrete is assumed to behave as a rigid, perfectly plastic material, obeying the modified Coulomb failure criterion with the associated flow rule. At failure the cracked concrete in compression is simultaneously subjected to tensile strains in the direction normal to the compression. Therefore, it exhibits a reduced strength compared to the uncracked concrete uniaxially compressed. To this, other theories, such as the modified compression field theory (MCFT), provide a similar interpretation (Vecchio and Collins 1986). This is called compression softening and can be recognized in the plastic theory by the effectiveness

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Figure 2. Ideal crack pattern in a beam without stirrups under shear load.

Figure 1. Typical crack pattern in a beam without stirrups under shear load.

factor of concrete. In the usual plastic solution the effective compressive strength is fc,ef = c fc , where the effectiveness factor is given by:

Figure 3. Typical crack pattern in a beam without stirrups under shear load.

with fc = compressive cylinder concrete strength; h = height of beams cross section; r = 100As /bh; and a = shear span. Equation (1) shows that the c is function of shear span-depth ratio a = h. The question of why it is necessary to include an a/h dependency when the whole range of a/h values has to be covered was explored and solved by Zhang (1997) in the CSM. The low values of c for a/h around 2.5 are due to sliding in initial cracks. Due to the dramatically reduced sliding resistance in a crack, sliding along a crack originated in a generic section of the shear span may be more dangerous than sliding along the theoretical yield line between support and load point as in the usual plastic solution. The crack pattern at the state of failure is schematically shown in the Figure 1. The first cracks are normally formed in the region with maximum moment and are vertical. Then, gradually, diagonal cracks appear in the shear span closer to the support, along a line that approximately intersect the top face at the loading point. The load needed to develop these cracks is higher, the less the distance x to support (see the curve marked cracking load in Fig. 1). The load needed to develop a sliding failure through a crack is lower, the less the distance is from the support, like in the usual plastic solution. The shear capacity curve in Figure 1 shows that higher the shear span, the lower the load capacity. According to the plastic theory, when the two curves intersect the crack may develop, in terms of the plastic theory, into a yield line and a shear failure takes

place. The last diagonal crack is referred to as the critical diagonal crack. The cracking load and the shear capacity curves in Figure 1 do not always intersect, because the cracking load curve can be lower than the shear capacity curve within the x range. In these case, the shear capacity coincides with the value of the usual plastic solution. In the CSM is assumed that diagonal cracks are developed following straight lines from the bottom face to the loading point, thus the starting crack sections may be individuated by their horizontal projection x. Further is assumed that the beam is over reinforced in the longitudinal direction, then the relative displacement u along the critical diagonal crack to be vertically directed (Fig. 2). Using the upper bound approach of plastic theory and on the basis of the beams failure mechanism in Figure 2, the work equation Wi = We and the upper bound solution are:

with b = width of cross section, = (90 ), cot = (a x)/h and u the average shear stress at failure. The cracking load curve is evaluated in a simple way. For the beam with a semicircular crack (Fig. 3),

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the moment equation about point A, with a statically equivalent straight tensile stress ft;ef , gives the average cracking stress cr :

ft;ef = 0:156fc (h/0.01)0.3 being the effective tensile strength. Introducing this new concept Zhang eliminated the dependence of c by shear span-depth ratio and proposed to evaluated the effectiveness factor for concrete in compression as a product of two terms:
2/3

Figure 4. Relative flexural capacity evaluated with CSM and Russo et al.s model.

where s = 0:50 is the sliding reduction factor due to the reduced cohesion of cracked concrete when the yield line follows the diagonal crack path or crosses many cracks; 0 is partly adhere to the empirical formula obtained in the original plastic solution (Nielsen 1999). Its interesting to observe that recently the disturbed stress field model (DSFM), the updating of the MCFT, adopted an analogous coefficient equal to 0.55 to take into account the influence of crack sliding on the compression softening (Vecchio 2000b). 2.1 The arch action contribute The CSM is a mechanical model to determine the ultimate shear load of plain concrete beams without stirrups. It has been validate by Zhang (1997) on a large database of data collected in literature. The tests considered by the author for the model corroboration are characterized by values of a/h higher than 2, thus the most of specimens collapse for diagonal tension and the beam action is the principal shear resistance mechanism. The Figure 4 shows the dependence of the relative flexural capacity (Mu /Mfl ) by the shear span-effective depth (a/d) for a plain concrete beam, where the nominal flexural capacity is evaluated as suggested by ACI (1983):

values higher than 2 and fails for a/h values lower than 2 because its not able to furnish a good estimation of the arch action. This is due at the choice of Zhang to completely eliminate the dependence of the effectiveness factor of concrete in compression by a/h. This assumption provides numerical results far from the experimental values observed for beams with a/h < 2. In order to eliminate this drawback, the CSM is modified retaining the correlation of the efficiency factor by the a/h ratio for a/h lower than 2, i.e. assuming an additional term [1.0 + 0.17(a/h 2.6)2 ] in (5) for a/h 2.6 The accuracy increment obtained by the modified version of the CSM is shown by the solid line in Figure 4, where the assessment of the noticeable increment in the relative flexural capacity for the deep beams is shown.

3 THE CSM FOR FIBROUS CONCRETE BEAMS Flatten stress-strain relationship in the post peak range of fibrous concrete in compression and tension make the SFRC more suitable than plain concrete for the application of the plastic theory. Moreover, the presence of fibers in the matrix induces the reduction of the slips along cracks. To extend the CSM formulation to fibrous concrete beams, the most important issue is the use of reliable constitutive laws for FRC in compression and tension. For concrete in compression, the main parameter to be evaluated is the effective compressive strength fc,ef , related to the cylinder strength fc by the effectiveness factor c , which accounts for the limited crack sliding resistance and ductility of material. Few expressions have been proposed for the effectiveness factors in compression of fiber concrete (Nielsen 1999). A value of effectiveness factors for fibrous concrete higher than plain concrete is expected.

fy = yield steel strength and = geometrical percentage of longitudinal reinforcement. The ultimate moment Mu is calculated with CSM and by the formulation known in literature (Russo et al. 1991) for plain concrete beams. The Russo et al.s model provides the contribution of both beam and arch resistance mechanisms in the whole range of a/d values. The CSM is in good agreement with numerical results only for a/h

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The residual tensile stress of SFRC also plays an important role in the shear mechanism failure of beam. The several analytical relationship proposed by Foster et al. (2006), called Variable Engagement Model (VEM06), for fibrous concrete in direct tension is proposed to evaluate the effective tensile strength (ft,ef = t fct ). The VEM06 considers the slip between the fibers and the concrete matrix that occurs before that the full bond stress is developed and that the fibers can fracture themselves before being pulled out across a crack. The constitutive tensile law, expressed in terms of tensile tension and crack opening displacements (w), is the simple sum of stresses contribute by matrix and fibers:

According VEM06 the fibers are mechanically anchored to the matrix and some slips, between fiber and matrix, must occur before the anchorage is engaged. The crack opening w for which the fiber becomes effectively engaged in the tension carrying mechanism is termed the engagement length we = tan, where = df /3.5 is a material parameter and is the fiber inclination angle evaluated respect to the crack plane. When w is equal or higher than we the force in a single fiber is Pf = df f (la w), with la = initial length of embedment of the fiber and f = mean shear stress between the fiber and the matrix measured along the remaining portion of embedded fiber (la w). Integrating the expression of single fiber force, Pf , over a plane of unit area, the tension stress bridging by fibers across the crack is obtained:

Figure 5. Comparison between experimental and analytical results for fibrous concrete beams.

allowable crack opening in shear is wm = 0.01 h. Once the value of wm at shear failure is known, the tension stress bridging by fibers across the crack is calculated by Equation (8). It is also interesting observed that a rearrangement of Equation (7) provides the analytical expression of the effectiveness tensile factor: tf = cf (wm )/fct . 4 CORROBORATION

being F a parameter analogous at the fiber factor and Kf (w) the global orientation factor which depends by w. To predict the value of residual tensile strength of fibrous concrete at the shear failure of beam, the contribute given by the matrix, c (w), is computed by a simple linear law (Vecchio 2000b), where the energy fracture of plain concrete is evaluated as suggested by Marti et al. (1999). The crack opening at shear collapse of the beam (wm ) was evaluated by Casanova and Rossi (1997) on the basis of some experimental results on fibrous concrete specimens. They proposed to evaluate wm as the product of the height of the beam (h) and the strain of the longitudinal reinforcement (s ). Assuming a limited value for s equal at 1%, the

A large database (109 data) of experimental tests results on SFRC beams without stirrups was compiled from literature to validate the proposed CSMf model for prediction of shear strength of rectangular fiber reinforced concrete beams (Narayanan and Darwish 1987; Ashour et al. 1992; Imam et al. 1995; Kwak et al. 2002). Beam specimens failing in shear, or if with a crack patterns indicating that shear failure mode is predominated, only are added to the database. Moreover, the fiber aspect ratio was limited to a range of 40 to 133; the volumetric percentage of fibers between 0.25 and 2.00%; the height of cross section to a minimum value of 150 mm and a maximum value of 700 mm; and a = d to a range of 1.0 to 3.5 Firstly, for validation of the proposed model (CSMf), data have been spitted in two groups, depending by the concrete compression strength. In the Figure 5 the values of the ratio between experimental results given in literature and the analytical values, predicted by using the presented model, are reported together with its mean value and Coefficient Of Variation (COV). Two different values of crack sliding factor (sf ) have been used: the first (Figs 5a,b) is the original value

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fc = 32.5 MPa
1 0.9 0.8 0.7 0.6 0.5 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6 2 3 4 5 6 1 0.9 0.8 0.7 0.6 0.5 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6

fc = 65.0 MPa

Mu/Mfl

Mu/Mfl

(%)

a/d

(%)

a/d

fc = 32.5 MPa

fc = 65.0 MPa
1 0.9 0.8 0.7 0.6 0.5 0.8

fl

0.7 0.6 0.5 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6 2 3 4 5 6

proposed by Zhang for plain concrete beams equal to 0.50; the second (Figs 5c,d) is chosen equal to 0.77. The former is too conservative for normal and high strength concrete, providing also an high value of COV for both the two concrete compression strengths. By contrast, the latter provides an accurate prediction of experimental results whit a mean value of 1.01 and COV value smaller for high strength concrete. The choice of a sf value for fibrous concrete higher than plain concrete is explained by the capacity of fiber to limit the crack slips. Finally, for the comparisons of Figures 5e,f the value of 0.80 for effectiveness factors in compression and tension has been used (Voo et al. 2003). This constant value for both effectiveness factor is not able to take into account the functionally dependence of effective strength of concrete by different parameters and conditions, and the numerical results overestimated the experimental values. A comparison of the predicted shear strength using some empirical and semi empirical formulations known in literature (Sharma 1986; Campione et al. 2006; Narayanan and Darwish 1987; Al-Taan and Al-Feel 1990; Khuntia et al. 1999; Imam et al. 1995; Ashour et al. 1992; Kwak et al. 2002) and the experimental measured failure shear stress has been performed. The statistical coefficients are synthetically reported in Figure 6 with the analogues values obtained by the proposed model. The comparison shows that CSMf provides the best prediction for normal and high strength SFRC beams. The results in Figure 6 show that only three models are able to provide an accurate prediction of shear strength. Narayanan and Darwish (1987)s model (ND87) is less conservative than CSMf to predict the shear capacity of normal strength fibrous concrete beams. Instead, for high strength fibrous concrete beams, Kwak et al. (2002)s model (KEKK02) and Campione et al. (2006)s model (CLP06) give a good estimation of shear capacity, with the mean value equal to 1.00 for the KEKK02 model. 5 NUMERICAL ANALYSIS

Mu/Mfl

Figure 6. Statistical comparison of expression for shear capacity of fibrous concrete beams.

1 0.9 0.8

M /M

1 1.2 1.4 1.6 2 3 4 5 6

(%)

a/d

(%)

a/d

f = 32.5 MPa
c
1 0.9 0.8 0.7 0.6 0.5 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6 2 3 4 5 6 1 0.9 0.8 0.7 0.6 0.5 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6

f = 65.0 MPa
c

Mu/Mfl

Mu/Mfl

(%)

a/d

(%)

a/d

Figure 7. Valley of diagonal failure for normal and high strength concrete and for different fiber factor values.

fibers are highly effective in reducing the range of a/d for which a brittle shear failure is expected. A numerical analysis carried out with the proposed model was performed to reproduce this experimental evidence and confirm the models reliability, and the valleys of diagonal shear failure are drawn. The investigation is performed by assuming two different typologies of concrete: namely an high strength concrete (fcf = 65.0 MPa) and the normal strength (fcf = 32.5 MPa). The longitudinal reinforcement percentage was limited to a range of 0.75% to 1.50% to reflect practical situations. Finally hooked ended fibers, with a length of 30.0 mm, a diameter of 0.50 mm (lf /df = 60) and a yield strength of 1130 MPa is considered. The fibre efficiency is quantified by three different fiber factor (F) values, namely 0.30 (low), 0.60 (medium) and 0.90 (high). To evaluate the relative flexural capacity the bending moment corresponding to flexural failure, Mfl , is calculated according to the formulation of Imam et al. (1995) for fibrous concrete:

Many experimental tests on fibrous concrete beams without stirrups subjected to shear load show that

As shown in Figure 7a, the shear failure domains are extend using low fiber factor and high longitudinal reinforcement percentage, for which a minimum value

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of the relative flexural capacity (Mu /Mfl = 0.6 0.7) for a/d 3 is observed. = Increasing the amount of fibers in the mixture (F = 0.60) the shear failure valley tend to disappear (Fig. 7b). However it is still wide for normal strength concrete, while in case of high strength concrete the domain of shear failure is extended to a/d ratios between 1.0 and 3.5 This trend is confirmed with F = 0.90, where the valley of diagonal shear failure for normal strength concrete members is narrower, while shear collapse is reported just for few a/d ratios and high longitudinal reinforcement ratio. This behavior is emphasized for high strength fibrous concrete beams, where the fibers highly help to tighten the shear failure valley. As seen in Figure 7 the proposed model still predicted a shear failure for very deep beams, with a/d 1, and normal strength concrete. In these condi= tions experimental tests show a shear capacity higher than flexurals one, that depends on the compressive strength of concrete. The main reason of that is in the nature of the original formulation of CSM, that was proposed aiming to predict the shear capacity of beams that collapse for diagonal tension. In order, to resolve this drawback, CSM was updated for predicting the behavior of short beams by introducing an additional term, depending of a/h ratio, determined by tests on plain concrete members. This span shear-depth function underestimates the shear capacity of short beams, with a large amount of longitudinal reinforcement and normal compressive concrete strength. 6 CONCLUSIONS

more prominent when a minimum amount of fibers with a fiber factor equal to 0.60 is added, or high strength concrete beams are considered. REFERENCES
ACI (1983). Building code requirements for reinforced concrete (ACI318-83). Technical report, American Concrete Institute Detroit Michigan (USA). Al-Taan, S. A. and J. R. Al-feel (1990). Evaluation of shear strength of fiber reinforced concrete beams. Cement and Concrete Composites 12, 8794. Ashour, S. A., G. S. Hasanain, and F. F. Wafa (1992). Shear behaviour of high strength fiber reinforced concrete. ACI Struct. J. (2), 176184. Campione, G., L. La Mendola, and M. Papia (2006). Shear strength of fiber reinforced beams with stirrups. Structural Engs and Mechs (1), 107136. Casanova, P. and P. Rossi (1997). Analysis and design of steel fiber reinforced concrete beams. ACI Mat. J. (5), 595602. Foster, S. J., Y. L. Voo, and K. T. Chong (2006). FE analysis of steel fiber reinforced concrete beams failing in shear: Variable engagement model., ACI SP-237, 5570. Imam, M., L. Vandewalle, and F. Mortelmans (1995). Shear moment analysis of reinforced high strength concrete beams containing steel fibres. Canadian J. of Civil Engineering 462470. Khuntia, M., B. Stojadinovic, and C. G. Subhash (1999). Shear strength of normal and high-strength fiber reinforced concrete beams without stirrups. ACI Struct. J. (2), 282289. Kwak, Y. K., M. O. Eberhard, W. S. Kim, and J. Kim (2002). Shear strength of steel fiber-reinforced concrete beams without stirrups. ACI Struct. J. (4), 530538. Marti, P., T. Pfyl, V Sigrist, and T. Ulaga (1999). Harmonized . test procedures for steel fiber-reinforced concrete. ACI Mat. J. (6), 676685. Narayanan, R. and I. Y. S. Darwish (1987). Use of steel fibers as shear reinforcement. ACI Struct. J. (3), 20662079. Nielsen, M. P. (1999). Limit analysis and concrete plasticity (2nd ed.). Boca Raton Florida: CRC. Russo, G., G. Zingone, and G. Puleri (1991). Flexure-shear interaction model for longitudinally reinforced beams. ACI Struct. J. (1), 6668. Sharma, A. K. (1986). Shear strength of steel fiber reinforced concrete beams. ACI J. (4), 624628. Vecchio, F. J. (2000A). Analysis of shear critical reinforced concrete beams. ACI Struct. J. (1), 102110. Vecchio, F. J. (2000B). Disturbed stress field model for reinforced concrete: Formulation. ASCE J. Of Struct. Eng. (9), 10701077. Vecchio, F. J. and M. P. Collins (1986). The modified compression field theory for reinforced concrete elements subjected to shear. ACI J. (2), 219231. Voo, Y. L., S. J. Foster, and R. I. Gilbert (2003). Shear strength of fibre reinforced reactive powder concrete girders without stirrups. Technical report, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering The University of New South Wales Australia. Zhang, J.-P. (1997). Diagonal cracking and shear strength of reinforced concrete beams. Magazine of Concrete Research (178), 5565.

In the present paper a mechanical model is proposed that aims at providing the shear capacity of fibrous concrete beams without stirrups under transversal loads. The model is based on plastic theory and limit analysis and takes into account the fiber concrete contribute to shear strength including the high residual post cracking tensile strength of SFRC. At this aim the constitutive law suggested by Foster et al. (2006) was used. In the proposed model, the effectiveness factor of fiber concrete in compression was modified for deep beams, by introducing an additional term depending on the shear span-depth ratio. The reduction slide factor for fiber concrete, sf , was increased to 0.77, in order to take into account the ability of fibers in reducing slips along shear cracks. Further study might be necessary to evaluate more accurately the contribute of fiber onto the shear resistance mechanism of short beams (arch action). Numerical analyses indicate that the addition of steel fibers enhanced ultimate loads of normal and high strength concrete beams. This enhancement is

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