Shear strength of basalt fi̇ber rei̇nforced concrete beams without sti̇rrups

In this study, the change in the shear strength with respect to the volume fraction of chopped basalt fibers was investigated experimentally. The experimental program consisted of four beams with a constant shear span-to-effective depth ratio (a/d) of 2.5, one of which is the reference beam without any fibers and three of which has fiber volume contents of 0.5%, 1.0% and 1.5%. The beams were loaded at the mid-span by applying a displacement-controlled concentrated load. The mid-span displacements were recorded by using a computer-aided data acquisition system and the shear strengths for different fiber volume contents were compared. Moreover, the results for a/d=2.5 were compared with the results for a/d=3.5 and a/d=4.5 reported by Ozgen (2018). It was observed in the experimental study that the shear strength decreases with the increasing volume fraction of basalt fibers. Keywords: Reinforced concrete, Beam, Chopped basalt fiber, Shear strength.