Effectiveness of stirrups and steel fibres as shear reinforcement

Abstract This paper presents the results of experimental tests carried out on rectangular simply supported beams made of hooked steel fibre reinforced concrete with and without stirrups, subjected to two-point symmetrically placed vertical loads. The tests, carried out with controlled displacements, allow one to record complete load–deflection curves by means of which it is possible to deduce information on dissipative capacity and ductile behaviour up to failure. Depending on the amount of transverse reinforcement, volume fraction of fibres added in the mix and shear span, the collapse mechanism is due to predominant shear or flexure, thus showing the influence of the aforementioned structural parameters on the load carrying capacity and the post-peak behaviour of the beam. In particular, the results show that the inclusion of fibres in adequate percentage can change the brittle mode of failure characterizing shear collapse into a ductile flexural mechanism, confirming the possibility of achieving analogous performance by using reinforcing fibres instead of increasing the amount of transverse reinforcement. The ultimate values of the shear stresses recorded experimentally are compared with the corresponding values deduced by semiempirical expressions available in the literature and the correlation is satisfactory.