EXPERIMENTAL STUDY ON INFLUENCE OF TENSION FORCE ON DOWEL EFFECT OF AXIAL BARS

The object of this paper is to investigate experimentally the influence of tension force and cover on the dowel effect of axial bars. Failure mode, dowel force-displacement relationship, dowel capacity and deformation of bars were investigated in detail under dowel load and tension force simultaneously. As a result, we found that dowel capacity increases as the thickness of cover increases, but its capacity decreases exponentially with increasing tension force. Furthermore, it is pointed out that the dowel effect of axial bar depends on the characteristics of concrete rather than those of bar. Finally, the posibilities of introducing the dowel effect into shear strength of RC members in design were discussed.