Investigation of behavior of R.C. deep beams having different reinforcement arrangement, experimentally and theoretically

Deep beams are important structural elements which are used in offshore, pile caps, rectangular cross section water tanks, silo structures, transfer beams in the high rise buildings, and bent caps. Because of the deep beams' lower a/d ratio, arch action occurs, so the shear failure. Therefore, in recent years, lots of researches have been carried out effectively for the improvement of the shear failure, causing beams in such brittle fracture. This study was performed to investigate theoretically and experimentally of the behavior of R.C. deep beams which have different reinforcement arrangements, is comprised of four parts. In the first part of the study, general information on deep beams, field of application, design principles, some earlier studies on deep beams, the purpose and the scope of the study is given. In the second part, in accordance with the purpose and the scope of the study, the production of deep beams which have four different reinforcement arrangements, is given. In the arrangement of all beams, horizontal and vertical shear reinforcement was used and the bending and vertical shear reinforcement ratio was kept constant. According to the deep beam which is selected as the reference sample, in one of the beams, the number of the web reinforcement was increased, and in the other two, different diagonal reinforcement which has the same reinforcement area was used. The result of the experimental studies were given in the third part and they were compared to the calculated shear force in accordance with strut and tie model which is used in the design of deep beams, in the code of nowadays. In the fourth part of the study, the results and suggestions were given. As a result of these studies, the compression reinforcement which is placed diagonally, significantly increased the capacity of load carrying and the absorption of energy, thus it is more ductile behavior than other reinforcement arrangements.