Parametric Analysis of Shear Behavior of Concrete Beams Reinforced with Continuous FRP Rectangular Spirals

An experimental program was carried out by the author to investigate the shear behavior of concrete beams reinforced with continuous FRP rectangular spirals, the main variables considered in the test were the shear reinforcement ratio and the shear span to depth ratio and the longitudinal reinforcement ratio. However, the experimental program is inadequate to gain insight into the shear behavior of the members. First, the quantities of test specimens were too small, only six beams were made and tested, the experimental database was so limited that the resultant analytical results and conclusions may not be sound enough. Second, not all the main factors that have influences on the shear behavior of the members have been treated as variables in the experimental program, such as the effective transverse compression stress and the concrete compression strength, the influences of these two factor on the shear behavior of the members were not clear yet through the experimental study. Considering the insufficient information provided by the experimental investigation, the parametric analysis of the shear behavior of the members was carried out, and a revised rotating-angle softened truss model for the shear analysis of the members was proposed as the analytical tool. Based on the proposed model, the influences of various factors on the shear capacity and shear failure modes of the members were discussed, related nonlinear analysis was carried out using the arithmetic of iteration and step approximation, and several FORTRAN codes were written accordingly. Through the experimental study and the parametric analysis, it is indicated that the shear capacity and the shear failure modes of the members are greatly influenced by three major factors, including the shear reinforcement ratio and the shear span to depth ratio and the effective transverse compression stress. The influences of the concrete compression strength and the longitudinal reinforcement ratio on the shear capacity are not noticeable comparatively. The shear capacity is little affected by the shear span to depth ratio in the case of the shear-tension failure, there is no noticeable correlation between longitudinal reinforcement ratio and the shear failure modes.