Investigation of spiral stirrup application in reinforced concrete beams by finite element method

Achievement of high strength for reinforced concrete structural members, requires an effective collaboration between concrete and reinforcement. However, a detailed investigation on the shear strength is a necessity for the expected ductile behavior. A reinforced concrete beam without adequate shear reinforcement will come up with increasingly inclined cracks at approximately 45 degrees to the horizontal formed near the support regions and present fracture, without reaching the flexural strength. In this case, it is even more important to design against shear with the reason that shear fracture is sudden and brittle. In this study, reinforced concrete beams with 30°, 45°, 60° and 90° helically placed stirrups alongside beams without transverse reinforcement, were considered. These beams were subjected to a four-point loading program and the shear behavior was investigated using finite element method over ANSYS software.