Experimental and Theoretical Studies on the Shear Performance of Concrete Beams Reinforced with Fiber-Reinforced Polymer Stirrups

Abstract

In this paper, the shear behavior of concrete beams reinforced with FRP stirrups is studied. The shear performances of six concrete beams with a size of 150 mm × 300 mm × 3000 mm under four-point loading up to failure were experimentally analyzed. The critical parameters included the shear span to depth ratio (λ) and stirrup spacing (S). The test results revealed that as λ increased from 1 to 2, 3, and 4, the ultimate shear capacity of the beam decreases by 50.5%, 67.7%, and 69.2%, respectively. Meanwhile, as S increased from 100 mm to 150 mm and 200 mm, the ultimate shear capacity decreased by 16.1% and 44.6%, respectively. A new shear capacity calculation model of concrete beam reinforced with FRP stirrups was also proposed, which further considered the shear capacity of the FRP stirrups on the basis of the shear capacity of an RC beam without stirrups using the strut-and-tie model. Finally, the experiment and calculation results of 56 beam specimens reinforced with FRP stirrups extracted from this paper and previous studies were compared using the calculation models proposed in this paper, in order to evaluate the accuracy of these calculation models.