Experimental Investigation on the Behavior of Reinforced Concrete Corbels under Repeated Loadings

Abstract

In this study, a total of twenty four vibrated and self-compacting concrete (SCC) corbels with normal and high compressive strength have been cast and tested under vertical loading. All corbels had the same main steel area. Twelve of these were tested under monotonic loading until failure with the following variables: shear span to effective depth ratio, amount of the secondary reinforcement (horizontal stirrups bars), strength of concrete (normal and high strength) and the type of concrete (vibrated and SCC). Test results indicate that the use of SCC in corbels, results in improving the behavior and shear strength of the specimens from (8.2% to 14.2%).For vibrated normal and high strength concrete, it was found that when the shear span to effective depth ratio is decreased an increase occurs in cracking and ultimate loads. Also, for corbels having the same shear span to effective depth ratio, the increase in the amount of secondary reinforcement (horizontal stirrups bars) causes an increase in the cracking and ultimate loads.In addition, tests were carried out on the other twelve corbels subjected to repeated loading regime in order to study the behavior of corbels under different load levels (60%, 80% and 90%) of the ultimate load of reference corbels. The results show that the corbels indicated that repeated loading scheme always experienced some increase in the deflection during consecutive cycles, and failed in a rather more ductile manner as compared with corbels subjected to monotonic loading regime.