Experimental Evaluation of Design Procedures for Shear Strength of Deep Reinforced Concrete Beams

This paper gives results from monotonic testing of 4 reinforced concrete deep beams. The behavior of the deep beams is described in terms of cracking patterns, load-versus-deflection response, failure mode, and strains in steel reinforcement and concrete. Despite different failure modes, failure loads and corresponding ultimate deflections were similar in all 4 specimens. Yielding of both longitudinal and transverse reinforcement occurred prior to failure. Based on the test results, the shear design procedures contained in the ACI 318-99 Code and Appendix A of the ACI 318-02 Code were evaluated. Both design procedures yielded conservative predictions of the shear strength of the single-span deep beams.