Shear Performance of Steel Fiber Reinforced Concrete Beams Without Stirrups: Experimental Investigation

Over the past century, a considerable amount of research has been conducted to study the brittle behavior of traditional concrete. Currently, fiber reinforcement material appears as an effective way to enhance general concrete performance under diverse loads. In the present study, an experimental investigation of the steel fibers' effect on the bending behavior of concrete beams is performed. The main objectives were first to see whether the use of steel fibers allows the total substitution of traditional transverse reinforcement (stirrups) and second to examine the effect of a combination of steel fibers and longitudinal rebars. The experimental program includes four beam specimens of dimensions 1700 mm x 80 mm x 150 mm. The results show that the fiber volume fraction of 100 kg/m(3) of uncoated steel fibers, which corresponds to 1.27% fiber volume fraction, can be used to replace the transverse reinforcement. Besides, the obtained results show that the combination of the steel fibers with longitudinal reinforcement is necessary to obtain a better resistance under bending.