Shear and Diagonal Tension

Introduction

The objective of today’s reinforced concrete designer is to produce ductile members that provide
warning of impending failure.

Shear failures

- different from bending failures in reinforced concrete beams, so the code provides larger safety
factors
- occur suddenly with little or no advanced warning

Shear Stresses in Concrete Beams

Pure shear

- probably never encountered in concrete structures

- if produced in a member, a principal tensile stress of equal magnitude will be produced in
another plane

Since the tensile stress of concrete is less than its shearing strength, it will fail in tension first.

Principal stress

- bending and shear stresses that combine into inclined compressive and tensile stress, if an
element of a beam is not located at an extreme fiber or at the neutral axis
- at the neutral axis, it will be located at a 45 degree angle with the horizontal

Diagonal tension

- also known as diagonal principal tensile stresses

- occur at different places and angles in concrete beams
- requires web reinforcing, if certain values are reached

Lightweight Concrete

- modified the effect of lightweight aggregate concrete on shear strength since ACI 318-2008
- added to most equatons containing squareroot of fc'
Shear Strength of Concrete

No one has been able to provide a clear explanation of the failure mechanism involved on the subject of
shear and diagonal tension for nonhomogeneous reinforced concrete beams

Design procedures are based primarily on test data.

Where moment is large

- extensive flexural cracks will be evident

- uncracked area of the beam section is greatly reduced
- nominal shear stress of concrete can be as low as 1.9…

Where moment is small

- cross section will be either cracked or slightly cracked

- large portion of the cross section is available to resist shear
- nominal shear stress of concrete can be up to 3.5…

Based on this, the code suggests that conservatively, the nominal shear stress of concrete be 2…

As an alternative, the following may be used, taking into account the effects of the longitudinal
reinforcing and the moment and shear values, and must be calculated separately for each point being
considered in the beam

Vc increases as the amount of reinforcing increases

The length and width of the crack is reduced

More concrete is left to resist shear

Closer contact between the concrete on opposite side of the cracks

More resistance to shear by friction (AKA aggregate interlock) on the two sides of cracks

Eqn 11-5

- more complicated
- requires compuntatcion of Vc at numerous positions since gamma w Vu and Mu are constantly
changing along the span
- the alternate balue of 2… is normally used
- if the same member is to be constructed many times, its use may be justified

Shear Cracking of Reinforced Concrete Beams

Flexure-shear crack

- inclined cracks extending from flexural crack

- ordinary types of shear crack found in both prestressed and nonprestressed beams
- to occur, the moment must be larger than the cracking moment and the shear must be large
- runs at angles of about 45 degrees with the beam axis
- probably start at the top of a flexure crack
Flexural crack

- approximately vertical
- not dangerous unless a critical combination of shear stress and flexural stress occurs at its top

Web-shear crack

- inclined crack which develop independently in a beam

- sometimes occur in webs of prestressed sections with large flanges and thin webs
- sometimes occur near the points of infection of continuous beams or near simple supports,
where small moments and high shear often occur
- form near the mid-depth of the section and will move on a diagonal path to the tension surface

As a crack moves up to the neutral axis, less concrete is left to resist shear, and shear stresses increase
on the concrete above the crack.

At the neutral axis, bending stress is zero and shear stress is at maximum, and will determined what
happens to the crack there.

If web reinforcing is not present, the following transfer the shear force:

- shear resistance of the uncracked section above the crack (20%-40%)

- aggregate interlock (33%-50%)
- dowel action, the resistance of the longitudinal reinforcing to a frictional force (15%-25%)
- for rather deep beams, a tied-arch type of behavior produced by the longitudinal bars acting as
the tie and the uncracked concrete above and to the sides of the crack acting as the arch above

Web Reinforcement

Web reinforcement

- usually stirrups that enclose the longitudinal reinforcing along the faces of the beam
- passed around the tensile steel
- run as far into the compression side of the beam as practical and hooked around the hangers to
meet anchorage requirements
- bending around the hangers reduce the bearing stresses under the hooks, which if too high will
crush the concrete and the stirrups will tear out
- should be closed when a significant amount of torsion is present in a member

SHOW FIGURES HERE

Hangers

- bars placed on the compression sides of beams to support the stirrups

- usually about the same diameter as the stirrups
ACI 11.4.2 does not permit the design yield stress of the stirrups to exceed 60 ksi:

- to limit the width of cracks that can develop, which develops more aggregate interlock
- to make anchorage requirements at the top of the stirrups less stringent as they would be for
that with greater yield stress

ACI 11.4.2 permits the design yield stress of 80 ksi for deformed welded wire fabric because recent
research shows that inclined shear cracks at service load conditions is less than for beams reinforced
with Grade 60 stirrups.

Behavior of Beams with Web Reinforcement

Truss analogy theory

- widely used for 100 years

- a reinforced concrete beam with shear reinforcing is said to behave much like a statically
determinate parallel chord truss with pinned joints, whose parts are as follows:
o compression concrete – top chord
o tensile steel – bottom chord
o verticals-stirrups
o diagonals-concrete between inclined cracks
- does not accurately describe the manner in which shear forces are transmitted

Web reinforcement

- used when referring to shear reinforcing since it is similar in action to the web members of the
truss
- increases the shearing strength of the beam
- has little to do with shear transfer in a beam before inclined cracks form

ACI 11.4.6.1 requires a minimum area for all concrete flexural members except:

- footings and solid slabs

- certain hollow-core units
- concrete floor joists
o shear forces are redistributed via the slabs to adjacent joints
- shallow beams with h not more than 10 in
o shear failures do not occur before bending failures
- beams integral with slabs with h less than 24 in and h not greater than the larger of two and a
half times their flange thicknesses or one-half of their web widths
o shear forces are distributed across wide sections
- beams constructed with steel fiber-reinforced, normal-weight concrete with f'c not exceeding
6000 psi, h not greater than 24 in and Vu not greater than 2…
o hooked or crimpled steel fibers in dosages above 100 lb per cubic yard exhibit higher
shear strengths in laboratory tests
o use of such fibers is not recommended when the concrete is exposed to chlorides, e.g.,
deicing salts
Inclined or diagonal stirrups

- lined up approximately with the principal stress directions

- more efficient in carrying shears and preventing or delaying the formation of diagonal cracks
- not very practical in the US because of the high labor costs required for positioning them
- rather practical for precast concrete beams where the bars and stirrups are preassembled into
cages before being used and there the same beams are duplicated many times

Bent-up bars

- usually at 45 deg angles

- another satisfactory type of web reinforcement
- commonly used in flexural members in the US
- average designer does not consider they can resist diagonal tension because:
o there are only a few , if any, bent-up bars in a beam
o bent-up bars may not be conveniently located for use as web reinforcement

Diagonal cracks will occur in beams with shear reinforcing at almost the same loads at which they will
occur in beams of the same size without shear reinforcing.

Benefits of shear reinforcing

- carries shear directly

- keeps cracks from becoming larger to enable the concrete to transfer shear across the crack by
aggregate interlock
- acts like hoops around the concrete core to increase the beam’s strength and ductility
- tie the longitudinal bars into the concrete core to restrain them from prying off the concrete
cover
- holds together the concrete on the two sides of the crack to keep the cracks from moving into
the beam’s compression zone

Design for shear

Purpose of stirrups

- minimize the size of diagonal tension cracks

- carry the diagonal tension stress from one side of the crack to another

Before the inclined cracks begin to form, stirrups:

- carry very little tension

- has strain equal to the strain in the adjacent concrete
- has very small stresses (3-6 ksi)
- do not prevent inclined cracks and aren’t a significant factor until the cracks begin to develop

Assumptions in the derivation:

- diagonal tension crack has been developed and has run up into the compression zone but not all
the way to the top
- stirrups crossing the crack have yielded
INSERT DERIVATION HERE

ACI Code Requirements

1. When Vu > half phi Vc

2.