Evaluation of Effectiveness of SFRC Deep Beams in Shear

The influence of steel fibres on the flexural strength of concrete and mortar is much greater than in the case of the tensile or compressive properties of these materials. The use of steel fibres in concrete significantly increases the flexural strength of the material. Furthermore, the increase of the flexural strength of SFRC is significantly improved with increasing the fibre aspect ratio (i.e. fibre length/fibre diameter ratio) and fibre volume fraction. The rapid ascent of fibre reinforced concrete to the main stream construction material has been spectacular and paralleled by no other construction material. In spite of coming a long way, there still exist a number of areas where fibre reinforcement has shown promise but an extensive use has not been transpired. One of such areas is ‘Structural Concrete’. Deep beam is such a structural element whose span to depth ratio is comparatively very small. Behavior of normal reinforced concrete deep beams and steel fiber reinforced concrete deep beams subjected to predominant shear with or without stirrups and web reinforcement is presented to evaluate the effectiveness of steel fibers in deep beams. The review of research work shows that the inclusion of steel fibres in reinforced concrete deep beams result in enhancing their deformation characteristics at all stages of loading up to failure as well as improving their shear resistance. Therefore, the use of steel fibres is an attractive alternative to test for deep beams for different parameters.