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

In this paper, results from the monotonic testing of four reinforced concrete deep beams are presented. The behavior of the deep beams is described in terms of cracking pattern, load-versus-deflection response, failure mode, and strains in steel reinforcement and concrete. Despite different failure modes, the failure loads and corresponding ultimate deflections were similar in all four 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