On the Ductility of High-Strength Concrete Beams

Ductility is important in the design of reinforced concrete structures. In seismic design of reinforced concrete members, it is necessary to allow for relatively large ductility so that the seismic energy is absorbed to avoid shear failure or significant degradation of strength even after yielding of reinforcing steels in the concrete member occurs. Therefore, prediction of the ductility should be as accurate as possible. The principal aim of this paper is to present the basic data for the ductility evaluation of reinforced high-strength concrete beams. Accordingly, 23 flexural tests were conducted on full-scale structural concrete beam specimens having concrete compressive strength of 40, 60, and 70MPa. The test results were then reviewed in terms of flexural capacity and ductility. The effect of concrete compressive strength, web reinforcement ratio, tension steel ratio, and shear span to beam depth ratio on ductility were investigated experimentally.