Sustainability of Using Steel Fibers in Reinforced Concrete Deep Beams without Stirrups

Ghassan Almasabha (), Yasmin Murad, Abdullah Alghossoon, Eman Saleh and Ahmad Tarawneh
Additional contact information
Ghassan Almasabha: Civil Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, The Hashemite University, Zarqa P.O. Box 330127, Jordan
Yasmin Murad: Civil Engineering Department, The University of Jordan, Amman P.O. Box 11942, Jordan
Abdullah Alghossoon: Civil Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, The Hashemite University, Zarqa P.O. Box 330127, Jordan
Eman Saleh: Civil Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, The Hashemite University, Zarqa P.O. Box 330127, Jordan
Ahmad Tarawneh: Civil Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, The Hashemite University, Zarqa P.O. Box 330127, Jordan

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 6, 1-17

Abstract: Reinforced Concrete (RC) deep beams perform better structurally when steel fibers are added, as this reduces the need for web steel reinforcements, boosts shear strength, and helps to bridge cracks. The current ACI 318-19 code does not include predicting shear strength models to account for the added steel fibers in Steel Fibers Reinforced Concrete (SFRC) deep beams without stirrups; therefore, structural engineers are less motivated to use them. To fill this gap, the databases of 281 RC and 172 SFRC deep beams were compiled, and the preliminary investigation of the collected databases revealed that (1) Longitudinal steel reinforcement significantly increases the shear strength of SFRC specimens, as the steel fibers make deep beams better at carrying loads by assisting them in bridging cracks; and (2) Although shear stress and span-to-depth ratio are inversely related, SFRC deep beams encounter larger shear loads than RC deep beams because when the span-to-depth ratio of beams increases, the failure mode switches from crushing struts to diagonal shear failure. To help structural engineers adopt SFRC deep beams, a nonlinear regression-based model was developed to estimate the shear strength of SFRC deep beams using the experimental database of SFRC beams. Three factors—feature selection, data preprocessing, and model development—were considered. Additionally, the model’s effectiveness was evaluated and compared with other models found in the literature. The proposed shear strength model of SFRC performed better than the other models in the literature, providing the lowest Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) of 1.58 MPa. The results of this study give practitioners a strong platform for establishing precise and useful estimations of shear strength in SFRC deep beams without stirrups.

Keywords: SFRC; deep beams; shear strength; beams without stirrups; nonlinear regression (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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