Assessment of Shear Strength for Existing Bridges with Low Amounts of Shear Reinforcement

Design of concrete girder bridges has significantly evolved during the last decades. This has been particularly relevant with respect to shear design, motivated by changes in actions and design models. As a consequence, assessing the shear strength of existing bridges leads in many cases to unsatisfactory safety levels. Furthermore, many existing bridges do not comply with current code regulations with respect to minimum amounts of shear reinforcement. This situation can lead to expensive retrofitting and strengthening of a significant number of existing bridges. The assessment of the shear strength of these bridges has thus become a significant task for structural engineers. Design codes are not always appropriate for assessing the strength of existing bridges. They propose safe models providing sufficient accuracy for design of a wide number of structures. However, these models do not account for some particularities of prestresses bridges and neglect a number of shear-transfer actions that can be relevant for their strength. This is typically the case of shear carried by the inclination of the compression chord, the increase of the stress in the tendons or the effective strength of concrete in the web of cracked prestressed girders. Accounting for more realistic approaches for these parameters may significantly increase the estimated strength of a structure with respect to code provisions, avoiding in many cases unnecessary retrofitting or strengthening. In this paper, the results of a tests campaign carried out at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne on 10 prestressed concrete girders (10 meters long, 0.78 m high) are outlined. The specimens were provided with very low amounts of shear reinforcement and some of them present defective stirrup anchorage to simulate realistic conditions of existing structures. The experimental results are discussed with reference to the stress field method where the role of the different shear-transfer actions is investigated and compared to current code provisions.

Post-tensioned girders with low amounts of shear reinforcement: Shear strength and influence of flanges

Miguel Fernández Ruiz, Aurelio Muttoni, Michael Markus Rupf

Assessing the strength of existing structures has become a major issue for structural engineers. Such analyses are often performed after changes of use of the structure or due to new design codes requirements. This is particularly relevant with respect to the shear strength of post-tensioned concrete bridges. Such structures were often designed in the past with fairly low amounts of shear reinforcement and do not comply with current code requirements in terms of amount of transverse reinforcement or shear strength. However, it should be noted that codes of practice cover the design of a wide range of cases and sometimes neglect some load-carrying actions or may be too conservative for assessing others. Therefore, the use of more refined models may potentially increase the predicted shear resistance and avoid unnecessary strengthening of existing structures. In this paper, an investigation on the behaviour of post-tensioned beams with low amounts of shear reinforcement and flanges is presented. First, the results of an experimental programme on twelve reinforced concrete beams (10.0 m long, 0.78 m high) failing in shear are described. The test series is used to analyse the most significant parameters influencing the shear strength and the failure modes. Its results are compared to a number of design codes showing different levels of accuracy. The test results are finally compared to the results of analyses based on elastic–plastic stress fields. This technique shows excellent results when compared to the test results and allows investigating on the role of the various shear-carrying actions, of the prestressing level and on the transverse reinforcement amount with respect to the various potential failure modes.

Engineering structures2013

Structural Response of R-UHPFRC - RC Composite Members Subjected to Combined Bending and Shear

Talayeh Noshiravani

The addition of a thin overlay of Ultra-High Performance Fibre Reinforced Concrete (UHPFRC) to Reinforced Concrete (RC) members is an emerging technique to strengthen and protect existing structures and to design durable new structures. Combining UHPFRC with closely spaced, small-diameter steel rebars in Reinforced UHPFRC (R-UHPFRC) layers improves the UHPFRC's strain hardening behaviour. For reasons of practicality, R-UHPFRC layers are cast or glued (in the case of prefabricated elements) on top of RC members, thus changing the latter into R-UHPFRC - RC composite members. The high strength and deformation capacity of R-UHPFRC elements make them a suitable external flexural reinforcement for RC members over intermediate supports, e.g., bridge decks and slabs or beams in buildings. Over reinforcement of RC beams and slabs with tensile flexural reinforcement can result in their shear failure at either a lower resistance or deformation than the associated values for member failure in flexure. A comprehensive experimental program was conducted to study the flexure-shear behaviour of R-UHPFRC - RC composite beams. The program comprises two test series on cantilever beams and continuous beams. The test parameters include shear span-depth ratio (a/d), the amount of transverse reinforcement ( ρν), the amount of longitudinal reinforcement, and the strength and bond condition of the R-UHPFRC rebars. The experimental results reveal the different failure modes of R-UHPFRC - RC composite members and the contribution of the R-UHPFRC elements to the member resistance, ductility and capacity to redistribute the internal stress. It was shown that in R-UHPFRC - RC beams with ribbed rebars and a shear span to depth ratio greater than 2.5 the stresses are carried by beam action. Depending on the degree of longitudinal reinforcement, all but two of the beams with 3.0≤a/d≤3.4 and ρν≤0.17 had a flexure-shear failure; the rest failed in flexure. The flexure-shear failure of the composite beams was at an approximately equal rotation level as their RC reference beam but at a resistance 2.3 times that of the RC beam. This is due to (1) the debonding interface zone between the elements that allows the R-UHPFRC - RC beams to rotate more freely and (2) the out-of-plane resistance of the R-UHPFRC element that contributes to the shear resistance. The internal flow of forces and the structural response of composite members strongly depend on the bond condition between the R-UHPFRC and RC, the UHPFRC and its rebars, as well as the concrete and its rebars. Cracking of the concrete along the interface zone causes bond reduction, i.e., softening of the shear connection, between the two elements. In presence of high shear stresses and diagonal flexure-shear cracks, interface zone softening is observed between the elements prior to the maximum resistance, while UHPFRC is strain hardening. The cause of this softening behaviour is the prying action due to the relative rotational movement of the RC rigid bodies separated by the flexure-shear cracks. Static and kinematic solutions of the theory of plasticity for RC beams are extended to predict the collapse load of R-UHPFRC - RC composite beams at the ultimate limit state. A mechanical model for predicting the structural response of composite beams is proposed. In combination with truss models, the concept of an R-UHPFRC - RC plastic hinge is introduced to calculate the force-displacement response of composite beams. The failure criterion based on the collapse mechanisms (kinematic solutions) sets the limit of the force-displacement response. The model is corroborated by the experimental results. This model provides a tool for analysis of RC members reinforced with an added tensile R-UHPFRC element.

EPFL2012

Shear in reinforced concrete without transverse reinforcement

Francesco Cavagnis

Since the first applications of structural concrete, the shear behaviour of one-way slabs without transverse reinforcement has been largely investigated. Nevertheless, currently in the scientific community there is no general agreement on the mechanisms of shear failure, on the parameters governing the shear strength and on the predominant shear-transfer actions. Hence, several mechanical models, based on very different hypotheses, and empirical formulations, calibrated on the available experimental results, have been proposed in the last decades. In addition, these experimental results have been traditionally obtained from tests on simply supported beams subjected to point load, whereas in most one-way slabs without transverse reinforcement in practice (foundations, retaining walls, slabs of cut-and-cover tunnels, silos) the boundary and loading conditions are typically different. This thesis has therefore the objective to provide new experimental data on reinforced concrete members without transverse reinforcement tested with different loading and boundary conditions, to increase the understanding on the mechanisms of shear failure and to develop a mechanical model based on the new experimental evidence. In the first part of the thesis, the experimental results of 23 tests on 20 beams without transverse reinforcement subjected to different loading (concentrated or distributed) and boundary conditions (cantilevers, simply supported or continuous beams) are presented. Refined measurement techniques allowed detailed tracking of the development of the crack pattern up to failure. The results show that the location, inclination and kinematics of the critical shear crack play a major role on the shear strength. Moreover, the amount of shear transferred by the various potential shear-transfer actions has been estimated on the basis of the experimental measurements and by using suitable mechanical models for each shear-transfer action. The analyses show that, for slender members, the shear-transfer actions contributing to the shear capacity are the inclination of the compression chord, the residual tensile strength of concrete, the dowelling action and the aggregate interlock, and the latter is the predominant one. For squat members or members in which the critical shear crack develops below the theoretical compression strut, differently, the arching action is predominant. In the second part of the thesis, a mechanical model, consistent with the main ideas of the critical shear crack theory, is presented. The shear force that is transferred through the critical shear crack by the various shear-transfer actions is calculated by integration of simple constitutive laws and a failure criterion is obtained by summing the different contributions. The shear and deformation capacity can thus be calculated by intersection of the failure criterion with a load-deformation relationship. It is shown that the failure criteria obtained by integration of stresses at the crack surface can be approximated by power-law equations. Combining the power-law failure criteria with the load deformation relationship, a closed-form equation has been obtained. The closed-form equation provides almost identical results to the mechanical model and allows for direct design and assessment of existing structures. The accuracy of the mechanical model and the closed-form equation has been checked against a large database, showing a good agreement to the experimental results.