300 • Chapter 6 Shear in Beams

6-7 HANGER REINFORCEMENT

When a beam is supported by a girder or other beam of essentially the same depth, as
shown in Fig. 6-41 or Fig. 6-42, hanger reinforcement should be provided in the joint.
Compression fans form in the supported beams, as shown in Fig. 6-41a. The inclined com-
pressive forces will tend to push the bottom off the supporting beam unless they are
resisted by hanger reinforcement designed to equilibrate the downward component of the
compressive forces in the members of the fan.
No rules are given in the ACI Code for the design of such reinforcement. The fol-
lowing proposals are based on the 1984 Canadian Concrete Code [6-29] and a study by
Mattock and Shen [6-36]. In addition to the stirrups provided in the supporting beam for
shear, hanger reinforcement with a tensile capacity of

hb
fAh fyt Ú a1 - bVu2 (6-31)
h1

should be provided within a length of bw2 + h2/2 + 2hb in the supporting beam and d2/4 in
the supported beam, adjacent to each face of the supporting beam where shear is being
transferred, where

h2

Fig. 6-41
Hanger reinforcement.
 Section 6-7 Hanger Reinforcement • 301

Ah = the area of hanger reinforcement adjacent to one face of the supporting beam,
bw2 = the width of the supported beam,
d2 = the effective depth of the supported beam,
hb = the vertical distance from the bottom of the supporting beam to the bottom of
the supported beam,
h1 = the overall depth of the supporting beam,
h2 = the overall depth of the supported beam, and
Vu2 = the factored shear at the end of the supported beam.
If shears are transferred to both side faces of the supporting beam, Eq. (6-31) is evaluated
separately for each face.
The additional hanger reinforcement, Ah, is placed in the supporting beam to inter-
cept 45° planes starting on the shear interface at one-quarter of the depth of the supported
beam, h2, above its bottom face and spreading down into the supporting beam, as shown by
the 45° dashed lines in Figs. 6-41a and 6-42a . These provisions can be waived if the shear,
Vu2, at the end of the supported beam is less than 3 2fcœ bw2 d2, because inclined cracking
is not fully developed for this value of shear force.
The hanger reinforcement should be well anchored, top and bottom. Also, the lower
layer of reinforcement in the supported beam should be above the reinforcement in the
supporting beam.

d2 ⫽ 18.5 in. 12 ⫻ 21 in. beam

h2/4

hb ⫽ 9 in.
45⬚ planes

18 ⫻ 30 in. girder
(a) Beams.

No. 3 double-leg stirrup

h2/4 ⫹ 9 in.

bw 2

Fig. 6-42
Example 6-4. (b) Plan view of joint zone.
302 • Chapter 6 Shear in Beams

EXAMPLE 6-4 Design of Hanger Reinforcement in a Beam-Girder Junction

Figure 6-42a shows a beam-girder joint. Each beam transfers a factored end shear of
45 kips to the girder. Design hanger reinforcement, assuming the yield strength of the rein-
forcement, is 60 ksi. The shear reinforcement in the beam and girder is No. 3 double-leg
stirrups.
hb = 30 in. - 21 in. = 9.0 in.
h1 = 30 in.
The total factored tensile force to be transferred by hanger reinforcement is

9
Th = 2 * 45 kips a 1 - b = 63.0 kips
30

The area of hanger reinforcement required is (f = 0.75):

fAh fyt = Th
Th /f
Ah =
fyt
63.0 kips/ 0.75
= = 1.40 in.2
60 ksi

We could use

four No. 4 double-leg stirrups, Ah = 1.60 in.2

seven No. 3 double-leg stirrups, Ah = 1.54 in.2

Assuming shear reinforcement in the girder is No. 3 stirrups, we shall select No. 3
stirrups for the hanger steel. It will be placed as shown in Fig. 6-42b. This is in addition to
the shear reinforcement already provided. ■

6-8 TAPERED BEAMS

In a prismatic beam, the average shear stress between two cracks is calculated as

V
v = (6-4)
bw jd
which is simplified to

V
v = (6-5)
bw d
In the derivation of Eq. (6-4), it was assumed that jd was constant. If the depth of the beam
varies, the compressive and tensile forces due to flexure will have vertical components.
A segment of a tapered beam is shown in Fig. 6-43. The moment, M1, at the left end of the
section can be represented by two horizontal force components, C and T, separated by the
lever arm jd. The tension force actually acts parallel to the centroid of the reinforcement