PERFORMANCE PREDICTION OF STEEL FIBER-REINFORCED RECYCLED AGGREGATES CONCRETE DEEP BEAMS WITH WEB OPENINGS

This paper aims to predict the shear strength of reinforced concrete (RC) deep beams containing web openings made with recycled concrete aggregates (RCAs) and steel fibers. Four numerical deep beam models were developed and verified against published experimental data. Three beam models had a 100% RCA replacement ratio, whereas one beam model was made with natural aggregates (NAs). One of the RCA-based beam models included steel fibers, one beam had internal steel stirrups, and the third beam was kept without steel fibers nor steel stirrups. The simulation models adopted a tensile softening law established through an inverse analysis of flexural test data of concrete prisms. The accuracy of published analytical formulas was also examined. The ratio of the shear strength predicted numerically to that measured experimentally was 0.89 to 1. Existing analytical formulas examined in this study overestimated the shar capacity of the tested deep beams by up to 49%.