Experimental study on shear behavior of prestressed reactive powder concrete I-girders

As a new generation of concrete, RPC(Reactive Powder Concrete) has attracted great research attention for its ultra-high strength and high durability. In the present paper, experimental results from tests on eight prestressed RPC I-section girders failing in shear are reported herein. The beams with RPC of 120 MPa in compression were designed to assess the ability to carry shear stress in thin webbed prestressed beams with stirrups. The test variables were the level of prestressing, shear span-depth ratio (a/d) and stirrup ratio. Shear deformation, shear capacity and crack pattern were experimentally investigated in detail. With regard to the shear resistance of the test beams, the predictions from three standards (AFGC, JSCE and SIA) on the design of UHPC structures were compared with the experimental result suggesting that the experimental strength is almost always higher than predicted. RPC, as a new concrete, was different from normal concrete and fiber reinforced concrete. Further study should be needed to develop an analytical method and computation model for shear strength of RPC beams.