| Abstract: | Shear test on simulated continuous beams without shear reinforcement This paper presents an experimental investigation on the shear behavior of continuous beams without shear reinforcement. A total of five rectangular 2‐span reinforced concrete beams under a uniform load were tested. In each beam the shear failure was arranged to take place in the main span, while the short span was highly reinforced by stirrups. The reaction at the end support of the short span was adjusted by different schemas during the test in order to obtain different M/V‐ratios at the main span. By this means significant differences in the failure location and thus the maximum shear force at failure between continuous beams have been observed. The experimental observations showed that the shear resistance is not a pure sectional property but it represents rather a structural character, which cannot be described by the model included in EC 2. The observations were interpreted using the proposed approach and generally could be well explained. Based on the knowledges obtained from this investigation and some other experimental programs, this paper suggests some remarks on the planning of test for continuous beams that conforms to the behavior of concrete structures in the practice. |
