Experimental Study on the Behavior of Normal and High Strength Self-compacting Reinforced Concrete Corbels

Abstract

The main purpose of this experimental study is to investigate the behavior and strength of self-compacting reinforced concrete corbels with and without steel fibers. The program included (10) specimens, in which the shear span to effective depth ratio (a/d), the amount of steel fiber (Vf), and compressive strength(f'c)of self-compacting concrete were varied. All specimens had the same length, thickness and main reinforcement and they were subjected to concentrated vertical loads only.It was found that the addition of steel fibers delays the formation of the cracking of fibrous corbel relative to nonfibrous corbels and the cracking load and ultimate load for Normal strength self-compacting concrete(NSCC) corbels increase by 31.5% and 25.3% when the volume of steel fibers increases from 0% to 0.4%. While the cracking and ultimate loads increases by 7.3% and 3.1% when the volume of steel fibers increases from 0.4% to 0.8% and the increase in volume of steel fibers from 0% to 0.8% results in increasing the cracking load and ultimate load by about 41.1% and 29.1% respectively.