SHEAR AND FLEXURE BEHAVIOUR OF SHALLOW-WIDE BEAMS REINFORCED WITH STEEL FIBRES

This paper reports an experimental campaign on shallow-wide beams in plain concrete and fibre reinforced concrete under shear loading tested at the University of Brescia. Shallow-wide beam is a very frequent structure in the residential buildings in Southern Europe (as in Italy and in Spain). In order to study the shear behaviour of shallow-wide beams and evaluate the possibility to substitute the minimum conventional transverse reinforcement required by Eurocode 2 with steel fibres, sixteen full-scale shallow-wide beams have been tested. These shallow-wide beams (all having depth of 250 mm) had two different width, fibre content and, also, minimum amount of classical shear reinforcements. Results show that a relatively low volume fraction of fibres can significantly increase shear bearing capacity and ductility. Moreover, shallow-wide beams did not show the typical brittle failure even without any shear reinforcement and the effect of fibres was more prominent than in deep beams. Experimental results have been evaluated in terms of strength, ductility, shear cracking, collapse mechanism and effect of fibres.