Empirical shear assessment of reinforced concrete bridge members

The overall objective of this thesis is to develop a methodology which can be used to investigate the in-service performance of reinforced concrete members subject to shear loading, in order to update assessments of the shear capacity (and therefore the remaining life) of reinforced concrete bridges. To achieve this end tests have been carried out on two types of reinforced concrete members under different types of loading, with the principal response measured being the relative displacement of the top and bottom faces of the member, which has been referred to throughout as the “through-depth displacement”. The first member tested was a two-span continuous beam containing some web reinforcement in its central shear spans. This was loaded in a series of cycles to progressively increasing peak loads, with a few cycles to lower peak loads being carried out after the application of the higher peak loads.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo