Shear behaviour of reinforced concrete pile caps under full-width wall loading

Discrepancy between bending theory-based shear design formulae in UK design codes BS8110 and BS5400 has arisen from the independent development of the semi-empirical formulae based on limited experimental data. Stimulated by the advent of the Eurocodes, a series of experiments of reduced scale reinforced concrete (RC) pile caps under full-length wall loading were tested to investigate the real shear capacity of pile caps. The conservatism of current design formulae was found to be a function of shear enhancement factor and the width of cap over which shear enhancement is applied. The strut-and-tie method was confirmed to give better agreement with experimental results than bending theory based shear formulae