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While the basic expression for one-way shear in ACI 318-05 is the shear design provisions that provide consistent safety across
same for narrow beams, wide beams, and slabs, an engineer is the full range of member types. This paper provides results
permitted to design to higher shear stresses in the latter two cases from part of this program, which addressed the influence of
before shear reinforcement is mandated. There is concern that member width and the presence of shrinkage and temperature
these current provisions can be unconservative when applied to
thick slabs or large, wide beams. This paper discusses nine recent
reinforcement, two factors that may influence the shear
tests designed to investigate these concerns. Member width was capacity of slabs.
observed to have no significant effect on the shear stress at failure
for one-way slabs and for wide beams. Further, the presence of RESEARCH SIGNIFICANCE
shrinkage and temperature reinforcement did not influence the A substantial number of tests have shown that the ACI
one-way shear capacity. Based on the experimental results and equations for the shear strength of large, lightly reinforced
related narrow slab strip tests from the literature, the paper concludes narrow beams not containing shear reinforcement can be
that the ACI 318-05 shear provisions can result in inadequate levels of seriously unconservative.4-8 These tests include members
safety for both thick slabs and large wide beams. subjected to both uniformly-distributed loading and the
concentrated loading that is more typical of large transfer
Keywords: beams; reinforced concrete; slabs; temperature reinforcement. elements. The research presented in this paper indicates that
one-way shear behavior in wide beams and slabs is similar to
INTRODUCTION that in narrow beams, with no significant influence on the
In the design of buildings, modern architectural shear capacity from member width or from shrinkage and
constraints are pushing engineers to provide longer clear temperature reinforcement. This implies that it is appropriate to
spans at a reasonable cost. At the same time, there is a need use similar design procedures in checking the one-way shear
to minimize the overall structural depth, which can be capacity of narrow beams, of wide beams, and of slabs.
achieved through the use of wide beams or thick structural
slabs. When thick slabs are used, the time savings in ACI 318-05 SHEAR PROVISIONS
construction due to the simplicity of formwork, reinforcement The ACI 318-05 Code specifies that the nominal shear
placement, and access by following trades can significantly strength of a reinforced concrete section subjected to shear
enhance the cost effectiveness of the overall project. and flexure, which does not contain shear reinforcement, can
The ACI 318-05 Building Code1 requires that the shear be taken as (ACI 318-05, Eq. (11-3)):
capacity of slabs be checked against both beam action, where
the critical section extends in a plane across the entire width ( V c = 0.166 f c′ b w d ) (MPa units ) (1a)
of the slab (that is, one-way shear), and two-way action,
where the failure involves punching out of a truncated cone
around a concentrated load or reaction. Design guides2,3 ( V c = 2 f c′ b w d ) (psi units ) (1b)
recommend that in checking one-way shear, engineers may
consider a slab as a series of narrower strips of arbitrary
width. Thus, the design procedure for a 300 mm (1 ft) wide This expression, developed for the ACI 318-63 Code9,10
slab strip would be identical to that of a 300 mm (1 ft) wide on the basis of 194 tests having an average size of 194 mm
beam for the calculation of sectional shear demands. Based (7.6 in.) wide by 340 mm (13.4 in.) deep, was intended to
on ACI 318-05,1 however, the useable sectional shear capacity be a conservative estimate of the average shear stress at
of the slab strip would be twice that of the geometrically which diagonal shear cracks form. In the absence of shear
identical narrow beam if shear reinforcement was not reinforcement to control these cracks, this was believed to
provided. Considerable research4-8 has shown that the basic be an appropriate estimate of the shear strength of the
ACI expression for the shear capacity of large, narrow, member. It is of interest that only four members in the original
lightly reinforced beams can be highly unconservative. For data set had shear strengths below that given by Eq. (1),
narrow beams, this deficiency is largely mitigated by the while no result was below 88% of the predicted strength.
requirement to reduce the useable fraction of Vc by 50%. Because this expression was developed using tests on
Both wide beams and slabs, however, are exempted from relatively shallow members, it was not identified at the time
this requirement and, hence, questions can be raised about that the average shear stress at failure decreases as the
the shear safety of such members. Lubell et al.4 demonstrated member depth increases.4-6,11 In 1971, the ACI code was
that by applying the provisions for wide beams, a prototype
large wide specimen fully conforming to the ACI 318-05 ACI Structural Journal, V. 103, No. 6, November-December 2006.
provisions could fail at a load less than the corresponding MS No. 05-180 received July 22, 2005, and reviewed under Institute publication policies.
Copyright © 2006, American Concrete Institute. All rights reserved, including the making
design service load in shear. An extensive research program at of copies unless permission is obtained from the copyright proprietors. Pertinent discussion
including author’s closure, if any, will be published in the September-October 2007
the University of Toronto is currently focused on formulating ACI Structural Journal if the discussion is received by May 1, 2007.
Experimental setup
The specimens spanned 2600 mm (102.3 in.) and were
each subjected to point loads applied at midspan, resulting in
an a/d of approximately 3.0, which is within the range for
which ACI 318-05’s sectional shear models apply. The
concentrated loads were applied through 152 x 152 mm
(6 x 6 in.) steel bearing plates on the top centerline of the
specimens in a force-controlled manner.
Specimens AT-2/250A and AT-2/1000B were supported
by 152 x 152 x 50 mm (6 x 6 x 2 in.) neoprene bearing pads
mounted on top of instrumented steel pedestals. A 12 mm
(0.5 in.) thick steel contact plate was placed between the
neoprene and the concrete. This arrangement provided a
relatively flexible support, which allowed horizontal
translation and bearing rotation with minimal restraint.
Specimens AT-2/250B and AT-2/1000A were supported
on conventional steel rollers with 152 mm (6 in.) steel
bearing plates across the full width of the specimens, but
maintained the 152 x 152 mm (6 x 6 in.) loading plate
dimensions at midspan.
For the three bay, 3 m (9.8 ft.) wide AT-2/3000 specimen,
three concentrated loads were evenly spaced across the
width of the specimen, and three neoprene pad assemblies
were used at each end for the supports. These supports were
at the locations marked with arrows in Fig. 2, with the specimen
spanning left to right. A stiff spreader beam attached to the
loading machine provided approximately equal loads into
each strip. The total load including the weight of the apparatus
was recorded from the machine head, with additional load
cells at each point load. Some variation in the magnitude of
each applied load occurred, however, near failure; these load
Experimental results
The load-deflection relationships for the five specimens,
normalized per meter width, are presented in Fig. 3. The
flexibility of the neoprene allowed some bending perpendicular
to the principle spanning direction in Specimen AT-2/3000,
resulting in the center bay column strip appearing approxi-
mately 15% less stiff than the outer column strips (Fig. 4).
The results provided in Table 1, which have been
corrected for self-weight of the specimen to a critical section
d from the edge of the support plate, show that specimen
width had no significant influence on failure shear stress. It Fig. 3—Load-displacement relationships for Series AT-2
is interesting to note that the 3 m (118.3 in.) wide specimen specimens.
Table 1—Series AT-2 tests to investigate width effects on shear in one-way slabs
Specimen bw, mm h, mm d, mm fc′, MPa ρlong, % ρtemp, % Support size, mm PTEST, kN VTEST, kN/m VTEST, MPa VACI , MPa VTEST /VACI
AT-2/250A 250 469 437 37.7 0.915 — 152 x 152 229 467 1.07 1.03 1.04
AT-2/250B 252 471 439 38.5 0.904 — 252 x 152 224 453 1.03 1.04 1.00
AT-2/1000A 1002 471 439 39.0 0.909 0.190 1002 x 152 942 479 1.09 1.04 1.05
AT-2/1000B 1002 470 438 37.9 0.911 0.191 152 x 152 880 448 1.02 1.03 0.99
AT-2/3000 3005 472 440 40.6 0.908 0.190 3 at 152 x 152 2564 436 0.99 1.06 0.93
Average 1.04 1.00
Coefficient of variation, % 3.80 4.67
Note: fc′ indicates cylinder strength on day of test; PTEST represents applied machine load including apparatus weight; VTEST represents applied shear force adjusted for specimen
self-weight at ACI 318 critical section for beam shear.
Fig. 4—Load-displacement relationships for each bay in Fig. 5—Crack development sequence, Specimen AT-2/250B
Specimen AT-2/3000. (crack widths in mm).
Specimen design
The AT-3 test series was designed to evaluate the influence of
shrinkage and temperature reinforcement on the one-way
shear capacity of slabs. This test series consisted of four
members nominally 338 mm (13.2 in.) high by 700 mm
(27.5 in.) wide, with a central span of 2080 mm (81.9 in.).
The details of the specimens in the AT-3 series are provided
in Table 2 and Fig. 8. Two of the specimens contained
shrinkage and temperature reinforcement, while two did not.
The shrinkage and temperature reinforcement was well Fig. 6—Crack development sequence, Specimen AT-2/3000
anchored by means of standard 180-degree hooks within a (crack widths in mm).
horizontal plane (refer to Fig. 9). Each specimen contained
an identical configuration of longitudinal reinforcement
bars, each having a cross-sectional area of 500 mm2
(0.775 in.2) and a yield strength of 450 MPa (65 ksi). The
specimens were simultaneously cast using ready mixed
concrete containing 20 mm crushed Manitoulin Limestone
aggregate, with a nominal specified strength of 25 MPa and
expected strength of approximately 35 MPa. Thus, the
expected nominal flexural capacity was approximately 17%
greater than the expected nominal shear capacity, according
to ACI 318-05.
Experimental setup
All of the tests in the AT-3 series were conducted using
similar setup and test procedures. A single concentrated load
was applied at midspan, acting through a stiff spreader beam, Fig. 7—Failure crack surface of AT-2/3000.
Table 2—Series AT-3 tests to investigate influence of temperature reinforcement on one-way shear
Specimen bw, mm h, mm d, mm fc′, MPa ρlong, % ρtemp, % a/d PTEST, kN VTEST, kN/m VTEST , MPa VACI, MPa VTEST /VACI
AT-3A 697 339 307 37.5 0.93 — 3.39 475 346 1.13 1.02 1.10
AT-3B 700 338 306 37.8 0.93 0.19 3.39 506 367 1.20 1.03 1.17
AT-3C 706 338 306 37.1 0.93 — 3.39 517 371 1.21 1.02 1.19
AT-3D 706 339 307 37.1 0.93 0.19 3.39 497 357 1.16 1.02 1.14
Average 1.18 1.15
Coefficient of variation, % 3.28 3.36
Note: fc′ indicates cylinder strength on day of test; PTEST represents applied machine load including apparatus weight; VTEST represents applied shear force adjusted for specimen
self-weight at ACI 318 critical section for beam shear.
1.24d
s e = ---------------------- (in inches) (3b)
a g + 0.63
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The experimental research described in this paper was funded by the
Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. The
authors would like to thank this organization for its long-term support
of the shear research program at the University of Toronto. The assistance of
undergraduate student G. Potter during the construction and testing of the
specimens is greatly appreciated.
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