Flexural Behavior of High-Strength Concrete Beams Confined with Stirrups in Pure Bending Zone

The purpose of this study is to establish flexural behavior of high-strength concrete beams confined in the pure bending zone with stirrups. The experiment was carried out on full-scale high-strength reinforced concrete beams, of which the compressive strengths were 40 MPa and 70 MPa. The beams were confined with rectangular closed stirrups. Test results are reviewed in terms of flexural capacity and ductility. The effect of web reinforcement ratio, longitudinal reinforcement ratio and shear span to beam depth ratio on ductility are investigated. The analytic method is based on finite element method using fiber-section model, which is known to define the behavior of reinforced concrete structures well up to the ultimate state and is proven to be valid by the verification with the experimental results above. It is found that confinement of concrete compressive regions with closed stirrups does not affect the flexural strength but results in a significantly increased ductility. Moreover, the ductility tends to increase as the quantity of stirrups increases by reducing the spacing of stirrups.