Alexandria Engineering Journal (2017) xxx, xxx–xxx

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Alexandria University

Alexandria Engineering Journal

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ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Behavior of RC beams with tension lap splices

confined with transverse reinforcement using
different types of concrete under pure bending
Rasha T.S. Mabrouk *, Ahmed Mounir

Faculty of Engineering, Cairo University, Giza, Egypt

Received 4 April 2017; revised 27 April 2017; accepted 3 May 2017

KEYWORDS Abstract Many research studies have been carried out on the different parameters affecting the
Transverse reinforcement; bond strength of tension lap splices in RC beams but limited attention has been given to the effect
Lap splice; of using transverse reinforcement along the splice length. The first part of this research is an exper-
High strength concrete; imental program which consisted of sixteen reinforced concrete beams tested at the concrete labo-
Self-compacting concrete; ratory of the Faculty of Engineering, Cairo University. The parameters under study herein are the
Ductility; diameter of the transverse reinforcement as well as its shape and distribution while using three dif-
ABAQUS ferent types of concrete. The beams were all simply supported with 1800 mm span and
150
250 mm cross section. The tensile steel was spliced in the constant moment zone. The second
part of the research consisted of an analytical study to enhance the understanding of the topic of
this research. Three-dimensional nonlinear finite element analysis was carried with the help of
the well-known finite element software; ABAQUS. The concrete damaged plasticity model is
selected at this study because it is capable of representing the complete inelastic behavior of concrete
both in tension and in compression including damage characteristics. The analytical and experimen-
tal results were compared and contrasted. Good agreement was obtained.
Ó 2017 Faculty of Engineering, Alexandria University. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. This is an
open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

1. Introduction tinuous reinforcement bars in concrete elements. This can be

due to many reasons such as; steel fabrication, transportation
Splicing of reinforcing bars is one of the common practices limitations and steel workshop detailing. Lap splicing, which is
used in concrete structures. It is quite impossible to have con- often achieved by the overlapping of two parallel bars with
enough length, has long been considered as an effective and
economical splicing method. Good bond strength of the lap
* Corresponding author at: Concrete Laboratory, Faculty of Engi-
splice with the surrounding concrete reduces the probability
neering, Cairo University, 48 Gezeeret El Arab, El mohandeseen,
of bar slippage or splitting failure before the yielding of rein-
Giza, Egypt.
E-mail addresses: yrasha@yahoo.com (R.T.S. Mabrouk), ahmedmou-
forcing steel bars. Many parameters affect the bond strength
nir73@gmail.com (A. Mounir). of a lap splice such as: lap length, concrete cover, reinforce-
Peer review under responsibility of Faculty of Engineering, Alexandria ment bar diameter, reinforcement ratio, bar relative rib area
University. and transverse reinforcement provided within the lap zone
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.aej.2017.05.001
1110-0168 Ó 2017 Faculty of Engineering, Alexandria University. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Please cite this article in press as: R.T.S. Mabrouk, A. Mounir, Behavior of RC beams with tension lap splices confined with transverse reinforcement using different
types of concrete under pure bending, Alexandria Eng. J. (2017), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.aej.2017.05.001
2 R.T.S. Mabrouk, A. Mounir

[1]. In addition, the mechanical properties of concrete have a
significant effect on the bond characteristics which makes the
type of concrete a worthy parameter in the study of the behav-
ior of the tension lap splices [2]. Many advances in the produc-
tion of concrete led to different concrete types such as Self-
Compacting Concrete and High Strength Concrete. Self-
Compacting Concrete is known for its excellent deformability
and high resistance to segregation [3]. High Strength Concrete
has the advantage of a much higher strength than the usual
normal strength concrete.
Many researches were reported on the bond strength
between deformed bars and concrete for each of the above
mentioned three types separately. El-Azab [4] tested sixteen
High Strength Self Compacting beam specimens with two or
three spliced bars. He studied the effect of reinforcement diam-
eter, and ratio, splice length and casting position. He con-
cluded that for improving the splice bond strength, a splice
length of 40 times the bar diameter need to be taken as well
as using smaller bar diameter for the same reinforcement ratio
and avoiding top casting position. Twelve full-scale beams
were tested in positive bending by Turk [5] with the loading
system designed to determine the effect of self-compacting con-
crete and the diameter of reinforcement on the bond–slip char-
acteristics of tension lap splices. The results showed that load
transfer within the tension lap spliced bars embedded in self-
compacting concrete was better than that of the spliced bars
embedded in normal strength concrete.
Some research was conducted to study the effect of trans-
verse reinforcement on the behavior of the tension lap splice.
Seventeen full-scale beam specimens cast with high strength
concrete were tested in positive bending by Ahmed [6]. He
studied the effect of the concrete compressive strength, splice
length and the amount of transverse reinforcement within
lap splice zone. The results showed that providing stirrups
within lap splice zone increase the beam’s ultimate load capac-
ity and ductility. Diab [1] tested twelve normal strength con-
crete beam specimens. In this study, the type, spacing and
shape of spacing and shape of transverse reinforcement in
splice region embedded in normal strength concrete among
other variables were considered. He concluded that there is a
drastic increase in ductility of beams when transverse rein-
forcement was used. Ghasabeh [7] conducted an experimental
program on twelve beam specimens cast with self-compacting
concrete. He concluded that the ACI 408R-03 [8] descriptive
equation for predicting the stress at spliced bars was good just
for beams without transverse reinforcement within lap zone,
while it was not accurate for beams that contain transverse
reinforcement where it under-estimates the role of confinement
by stirrups. Generally, it can be said that design codes such as
ECP 203-2007 [9] and ACI 318-05 [10] do not take the effect of
transverse reinforcement into consideration.
Based on the above, it can be seen that the usage of the
transverse reinforcement has not yet been fully investigated.
The main objective of this research is to study the effect of
using transverse reinforcement with different ratios, distribu-
tion and shapes on the behavior of reinforced concrete beams
loaded under pure tension while using three different types of
concrete namely normal strength concrete, self-compacting
concrete and high strength concrete.
2. Experimental program
2.1. Test specimens
A total of sixteen concrete beams were fabricated and tested at
the concrete laboratory of Cairo University, Giza, Egypt
[11,12]. All the specimens were 2000
250
150 mm with a
loaded span 1800 mm. The main reinforcement consisted of
two high grade (400/600) steel deformed bars with diameter
10 mm. The specimens were divided into five groups as shown
in Table 1. Group I consisted of three control specimens cast
with the three types of concrete used in this research namely
Normal Strength Concrete (NC), High Strength Concrete
(HC), and Self-Compacting Concrete (SC). In these control
specimens, no splices were used. Group II consisted of 6 spec-
imens with lap splice in the middle zone to study the effect of
the transverse reinforcement in terms of number, diameter and

Table 1 Details of the test specimens.

Group Beam No. Specimen notation Concrete type Splice Average cube Transverse reinforcement
length (mm) strength (MPa)
No. Diameter Shape
I 1 NC- L00-0T6-V Normal 0 31.86 0 0 –
2 HC- L00-0T6-V High strength 0 92.91 0 0 –
3 SC- L00-0T6-V Self-compacting 0 34.30 0 0 –
II 4 NC-L30-0T6-V Normal 300 30.67 0 6 Vertical
5 NC -L30-2T6-V Normal 300 30.92 2 6 Vertical
6 NC -L30-4T6-V Normal 300 28.60 4 6 Vertical
7 NC-L30- 6T6-V Normal 300 32.56 6 6 Vertical
8 NC-L30-2T8-V Normal 300 30.92 2 8 Vertical
9 NC-L30-NT6-V Normal 300 27.80 6 6 Vertical
III 10 HC-L30-0T6-V High strength 300 87.29 0 6 Vertical
11 HC-L30-6T6-V High strength 300 89.70 6 6 Vertical
IV 12 SC-L30-0T6-V Self-compacting 300 33.20 0 6 Vertical
13 SC- L30-6T6-V Self-compacting 300 34.51 6 6 Vertical
V 14 NC-L30-4T6-S Normal 300 28.67 4 6 Spiral
15 NC-L30-4T6-R Normal 300 30.50 4 6 Rectangular
16 NC-L30-4T6-C Normal 300 29.10 4 6 Corrugated

Please cite this article in press as: R.T.S. Mabrouk, A. Mounir, Behavior of RC beams with tension lap splices confined with transverse reinforcement using different
types of concrete under pure bending, Alexandria Eng. J. (2017), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.aej.2017.05.001
Behavior of RC beams with tension lap splices 3

distribution. Group III and Group IV studied the HC and SC
concrete, respectively. Group V studied the effect of the differ-
ent shapes of stirrup. Four different types of stirrups were
Fig. 1 Different shapes of transverse reinforcement used.
investigated namely vertical, rectangular, corrugated and spi-
ral as shown in Fig. 1. All the specimens other than the control
group were designed to have a lap splice of length 300 mm at
mid span. This value was selected to develop stresses in steel
less than the yield stress in order to ensure a splitting mode
of failure [9]. Transverse reinforcement with diameter of
6 mm and spacing of 100 mm (Ø 6 @100 mm) was provided
outside the splice region of all beams to avoid shear failure.
Complete details of the different specimens are shown in
Fig. 2.
A four-part notation system was used to indicate the vari-
ables of each beam. The first part of the notation indicates
the type of concrete: NC, HC and SC for Normal strength,
High strength and Self Compacting concretes respectively.
The second part indicates splice length: L00 for no splice
and L30 for 300 mm splice. The third part indicates details
of transverse reinforcement provided and it is represented by
two numbers. For example; 4T6, the first number indicates
existence of four stirrups within lap zone while the second
number indicates that the used diameter for the stirrups is

Fig. 2 Elevation and cross-section of all the specimens under study.

Please cite this article in press as: R.T.S. Mabrouk, A. Mounir, Behavior of RC beams with tension lap splices confined with transverse reinforcement using different
types of concrete under pure bending, Alexandria Eng. J. (2017), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.aej.2017.05.001
4 R.T.S. Mabrouk, A. Mounir
Table 2 Details of the three concrete mixes used.
Mix type Mix-proportions per (kg/m3)
Dolomite 10 Dolomite 20
NC 620 620
SC 450 285
HC 446 893
6 mm. The fourth part represents the four different shapes of
stirrups used. V indicates vertical closed stirrups, R indicates
rectangular hoop stirrups, C indicates corrugated stirrups
and S indicates spiral stirrups.
2.2. Materials used
Three types of concrete mixes were designed to satisfy the
experimental program objectives. The first one is normal
strength concrete (NC) with a 30 MPa targeted compressive
strength after 28 days. This concrete did not contain any type
of admixtures. The second mix is for self-compacting concrete
(SC) with the same targeted compressive strength of 30 MPa
but requires a high level of fluidity. This was achieved by add-
ing mineral and chemical admixtures. The last mix was the
high strength concrete (HS) which requires a higher cement
content and lower water content together with using admix-
tures to produce a characteristic compressive strength of
90 MPa.
In the three mixes, ordinary Portland cement CEM I 42.5R
was used that complies with ASTM C150 type 1 cement. The
fine aggregate was natural sand with a specific gravity of
Fig. 3 Slump Flow Test and Slump test for fresh SC and NC
respectively.
(a) Control specimens with no splices
Fig. 4 Strain gauges locations for the main longitudinal reinforcement.
Please cite this article in press as: R.T.S. Mabrouk, A. Mounir, Behavior of RC beams with tension lap splices confined with transverse reinforcement using different
types of concrete under pure bending, Alexandria Eng. J. (2017), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.aej.2017.05.001
Sand Water Cement Silica fume Super plasticizer
640 200 300 – –
990 190 450 45 11
446 130 500 75 17
2.63 and fineness modulus of 2.78 was used. The coarse aggre-
gate used was well graded crushed dolomite with a nominal
maximum size of 20 and 10 mm. with specific gravity of 2.61
and water absorption of 0.5% by mass. The mineral admixture
was light gray locally produced silica fume. The chemical
admixture was super-plasticizer type GLENIUM C315 which
is used to increase the workability of concrete and to reduce
the amount of required mixing water. The mixes used to cast
the specimens were developed by trial batching at the Concrete
Research Laboratory of Cairo University. Mixture propor-
tions are shown in Table 2.
The SC was poured into the mold at once without any
vibration while the NC and HC were cast in two layers in each
beam specimen and compacted using an electrical vibrator.
Methods used to determine the fresh self-compacting concrete
properties are different than the ones recommended for fresh
normal vibrated concrete. In addition to the slump, there are
several other essential test items for fresh concrete properties
of SC based on the guidance given in EFNARC (2005) [3],
including the slump flow, T50, V-funnel test, L-box test and
segregation sieve test. The slump of NC was 68 mm as mea-
sured before casting while, a slump flow of 660 mm was
obtained for SC as shown in Fig. 3. Typically, three
150
150
150 mm cubes were cast with each test beam
and used for compression test. The beams and cubes were kept
under the same curing conditions. Compression test on cubes
were carried out on the same day of beam testing, and the
results were higher than the design compressive strengths of
concrete.
2.3. Test procedure
A two point loading system was applied to all the beams to
ensure an area of pure bending in the mid zone. The testing
machine consisted of a static hydraulic loading jack with an
electrical load cell which was used to apply the concentrated
vertical load at increments of 3.5 kN/s. The load from the test-
ing machine was transferred through a stiff steel spreader
(b) Specimens with lap splices
Behavior of RC beams with tension lap splices 5

sured using 10 mm strain gauges which were attached at the

center of the main reinforcement in case of the control speci-
mens with no splices. While in case of splices, two strain gauges
were used one at the middle and the other one at the end of the
splice as shown in Fig. 4. In addition to longitudinal reinforce-
ment, strain gauges were also attached to the stirrups. Fig. 5
shows the general test arrangement and Fig. 6 shows a sche-
matic view.

3. Results and discussion

In this part the experimental results of all the tested beams are
Fig. 5 General test arrangement. discussed in terms of load-deflection relationships, ductility (D)
and modes of failure. Table 3 shows the output results for all
the tested beams. The ductility index of the beam is defined as
the ratio of mid span deflection at ultimate load to the mid
span deflection at the yielding load of the main steel [11]. In
this research, the ultimate deflection of the tested beams is also
compared to the ultimate deflection of the control specimen
and is referred to herein as the relative ductility. Crack pat-
terns and load strain curves can be referred to in Refs. [12,13].

3.1. Stirrups and stirrups spacing

The results for group II and the control specimen NC-L00-

Fig. 6 Schematic view of test arrangement.
beam onto the specimens in the form of two equally concen-
trated loads. A digital load indicator with 1 kN accuracy was
used to measure the applied load.
At each load stage, deflection readings were taken at mid
span and one-third of the beam span using LVDT instrument
gauge of 0.01 mm accuracy. Cracks at the faces of the speci-
mens were marked for further analysis. Strain in steel was mea-
0T6-V are discussed in this section. All beams in this group
were normal concrete. Fig. 7 shows the comparison between
beams NC-L00-0T6-V, NC-L30-0T6-V and NC-L30-6T6-V.
It can be seen that when a splice is applied without any trans-
verse reinforcement as in case of beam NC-L30-0T6-V, the
ultimate load is reduced by 21.5% compared to the beam with-
out splice and the ductility is much reduced as represented by
the area under the load deflection curve as well as the ductility
index shown in Table 3. However, in case of beam NC-L30-
6T6-V where six stirrups are added in the splice zone, the
behavior is much improved. The value of the ultimate load

Table 3 Ultimate loads and ductility measures for the tested beams.
Group Specimen notation Deflection Deflection at ultimate Ultimate Ductility Relative Mode of
at yield (mm) load (mm) load (kN) index ductility failure
I NC-L00-0T6-V 7.9 32.49 104 4.11 1 Flexure
HC-L00-0T6-V 2.74 40.43 132 14.76 1 Flexure
SC-L00-0T6-V 4.02 29.46 106 7.33 1 Flexure
II NC-L30-0T6-V 3.92 6.66 84.6 1.70 0.20 Splitting
NC-L30-2T6-V 3.56 6.10 99 1.71 0.19 Splitting
NC-L30-4T6-V 2.74 5.80 98 2.12 0.18 Flexure
NC-L30-6T6-V 3.68 30.10 102 8.18 0.93 Flexure
NC-L30-2T8-V 3.78 5.91 93 1.56 0.18 Splitting
NC-L30-NT6-V 3.26 22.71 95.5 6.97 0.70 Splitting
III HC-L30-0T6-V NAa NAa 96 NAa NAa Splitting
HC-L30-6T6-V 5.89 40.08 130 6.80 1.23 Flexure
IV SC-L30-0T6-V 3.88 10.10 101 2.60 0.31 Splitting
SC-L30-6T6-V 3.78 22.30 122 5.90 0.69 Flexure
b b
V NC-L30-4T6-S 6.48 75.6 0.20 Splitting
NC-L30-4T6-R 4.57 5.41 101 1.18 0.17 Flexure
NC-L30-4T6 C 3.13 5.58 81 1.78 0.17 Flexure
a
An error occurred with the data reading during the experiment.
b
Steel did not yield.

Please cite this article in press as: R.T.S. Mabrouk, A. Mounir, Behavior of RC beams with tension lap splices confined with transverse reinforcement using different
types of concrete under pure bending, Alexandria Eng. J. (2017), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.aej.2017.05.001
6 R.T.S. Mabrouk, A. Mounir

120 120

NC-L30-2T8-V
100 100
Total vercal load (KN)

Total vercal load (KN)

NC-L30-4T6-V
80 80

60 60

40
40
NC-L00-0T6-V
20 NC-L30-0T6-V
NC-L30-6T6-V 20
0
0 20 40 60 0
0 10 20 30 40
Deflecon (mm)
Deflecon (mm)
Fig. 7 Effect of stirrups.
Fig. 9 Effect of stirrups diameter.

capacity became 98% of that of the beam with no splice and

the relative ductility reached a value of 0.93. In addition, the
mode failure changed from splitting to flexure failure. This
can be attributed to the fact that the use of transverse rein-
forcement eliminated the formation of splitting cracks at ten-
sion splice zone and minimized the width of cracks.
Compared to NC-L30-0T6-V, it can be seen from Fig. 8,
that there is a slight increase in the ultimate load capacity of
the beams by 17%, 17% and 21% when two, four, and six stir-
rups were used, respectively. However, the ductility was signif-
icantly improved as the spacing between the stirrups decreased,
where the ductility index reached a value of 8.18 in case of
using six stirrups. In addition, relative ductility values
increased from 0.19 for beam NC-L30-2T6-V to 0.93 in case
of NC-L30-6T6-V.
3.2. Stirrups diameter
For group II, comparing beams NC-L30-4T6-V and NC-L30-
2T8-V, both beams had the same transverse reinforcement
area but the first beam a larger number of stirrups (4) were
used with smaller bar diameter (6 mm) and the second one a
bigger diameter (8 mm) and only two stirrups were used.
Fig. 9 shows the results for the two beams. The ductility index
was higher in case of NC-L30-4T6-V and the ultimate load
slightly increased by 5.4%. However, the major advantage of
using four stirrups with smaller bar diameter was in the mode
of failure where it changed from splitting failure in case of
specimen NC-L30-2T8-V to flexure failure in case of specimen
NC-L30-4T6-V.
3.3. Stirrups distribution
Some codes for example Eurocode 2 1992-1 [14], recommend
that the transverse reinforcement be positioned at the outer
sections of the lap splice. Nonuniform distribution of splice
transverse reinforcement was clearly represented in specimen
NC-L30-NT6-V, while specimen NC-L30-6T6-V, had the same
amount of transverse reinforcement but with a uniform distri-
bution of stirrups. Fig. 10 shows the results of the two speci-
mens where it can be seen that the ultimate load capacity
was only 6% higher in case of uniform distribution. However,
it can be seen that uniform distribution resulted in a flexural
mode of failure and a deformation very close to the control
beam with no splice (relative ductility = 0.93) compared to a
splitting mode of failure in specimen NC-L30-NT6-V with rel-
ative ductility of 0.70. That can be attributed to the role of uni-

120
120
100
100
Total vercal load (KN)
Total vercal load (KN)

80
80

60 60

40 40
NC-L30-2T6-V
NC-L30-NT6-V
20 NC-L30-4T6-V 20
NC-L30-6T6-V
NC-L30-6T6-V
0 0
0 20 40 60 0 20 40 60
Deflecon (mm) Deflecon (mm)

Fig. 8 Effect of stirrups spacing. Fig. 10 Effect of stirrups distribution.

Please cite this article in press as: R.T.S. Mabrouk, A. Mounir, Behavior of RC beams with tension lap splices confined with transverse reinforcement using different
types of concrete under pure bending, Alexandria Eng. J. (2017), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.aej.2017.05.001
Behavior of RC beams with tension lap splices 7

form distribution of stirrups along the splice length, which 120

allows more bar lugs to share in the stress transfer mechanism. NC-L30-4T6-V
This causes the stress distribution to be very close to uniform 100 NC-L30-4T6-R

Total vercal load (KN)

distribution as well as increasing the compatibility between NC-L30-4T6-C
steel and the surrounding concrete. Fig. 11 shows the load 80 NC-L30-4T6-S
strain curves for the readings obtained at the middle of the
splice and the end of the splice which can be correlated to steel 60
stresses. It can be seen that the gap between the readings of the
two strain gauges was reduced in case of specimen NC-L30- 40
6T6-V with uniform distribution of stirrups compared to the
beam with no uniform distribution.
20

3.4. Stirrups shape

0
0 10 20 30
Four different shapes of stirrups were studied namely vertical,
Deflecon (mm)
rectangular, corrugated and spiral as shown previously in
Fig. 1. As can be noted from Table 3, the change in relative Fig. 12 Effect of stirrups shape.
ductility when using the four types of stirrups was not remark-
able where it ranged from 0.17 to 0.2. Fig. 12 shows the load
deflection curves for the four beams. It can be seen that using 140
the rectangular stirrups gave a value of ultimate load capacity
(101 kN) even slightly higher than the case of vertical stirrups 120

Total vercal load (KN)

(98 kN). The spiral and corrugated stirrups gave a lower value
100
of 75.6 kN and 81 kN, respectively. The mode of failure was
flexure except in case of spiral stirrups where it was splitting 80
failure.
It can be concluded that using rectangular stirrups around 60
the spliced bars in the tested specimens gave the best improve-
NC-L30-6T6-V
ment on the beam behavior causing it to act very close to the 40
HC-L30-6T6-V
beams provided with vertical stirrups along the splice length
compared to using corrugated or spiral stirrups. 20 SC-L30-6T6-V

0
3.5. Concrete type 0 20 40 60
Deflecon (mm)
Figs. 7 and 14 show the load deflection curves for the beams
using the three types of concrete NC, SC and HC. Regardless Fig. 13 Load deflection curves for high strength concrete.
of concrete type, all beams without stirrups along splice length
(NC-L30-0T6-V, SC-L30-0T6-V and HC-L30-0T6-V) had a
sudden splitting mode of failure. Similar increase of transverse ing the ultimate load capacity for the two cases of no splice and
reinforcement resulted in an increase in the beams ductility when six stirrups were provided within the splice zone, there
over beams with no stirrups along the splice length and a was not much difference for NC and HC. However, for SC
change in the mode of failure to flexural one as seen for beams concrete the ultimate load of the beam with transverse rein-
NC-L30-6T6-V, SC-L30-6T6-V and HC-L30-6T6-V. Compar- forcement surpassed the beam with no splice with about 15%.

120 120

100 100

80 80
Load (kN)

Load (kN)

60 60

40 40
end strain gauge end strain gauge
20 mid strain gauge 20 mid strain gauge

0 0
0 0.001 0.002 0.003 0.004 0.005 0 0.001 0.002 0.003 0.004 0.005
Strain Strain
(a) Beam NC-L30-6T6-V (b) Beam NC-L30-NT6-V

Fig. 11 Load – strain curves at mid and end of splice.

Please cite this article in press as: R.T.S. Mabrouk, A. Mounir, Behavior of RC beams with tension lap splices confined with transverse reinforcement using different
types of concrete under pure bending, Alexandria Eng. J. (2017), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.aej.2017.05.001
8 R.T.S. Mabrouk, A. Mounir

140 140

120 120

Total vercal load (KN)

Total vercal load (KN)
100 100

80 80

60 60

40 SC-L00-0T6-V 40 HC-L00-0T6-V
SC-L30-0T6-V HC-L30-6T6-V
20 SC-L30-6T6-V 20

0 0
0 20 40 60 0 20 40 60
Deflecon (mm) Deflecon (mm)
(a) Self-compacting concrete (b) High strength concrete

Fig. 14 Load deflection curves for different types of concrete.

Fig. 13 shows a comparison between the three types of con-
crete in case of using six stirrups within the lap splice. It can be
seen that the beam with HC had an ultimate load capacity
30% higher than that of NC while the beam with SC had an
ultimate load 22% higher than NC despite the fact that the
SC mix was designed with the same compressive characteristic
strength as the NC. This can be attributed to the fact that self-
compacting concrete has good bonding characteristics that
resulted in improving the beam behavior more than the normal
vibrated concrete with the same compressive strength [2,5]. It
can be said that self-compacting concrete can give optimum
compatibility between concrete, main reinforcement and trans-
verse reinforcement at splice zone. Comparing the ductility of
the three beams in Fig. 13, it can be seen that normal concrete
had the highest ductility index of 8.18 followed by high
strength concrete (6.8) and finally the self-compacting concrete
with 5.9.
4. Numerical simulation
In order to support the experimental results, a three-
dimensional nonlinear finite element analysis was undertaken
with the help of the commercial finite element software; ABA-
QUS version 6.13. ABAQUS is a very complex finite element
analysis program introduced with huge material characteristics
and parameters to reproduce high accuracy in calculations and
provide comprehensive outputs concerning stress analysis.
Fully integration scheme was chosen to integrate the element’s
internal forces and stiffness. The materials nonlinearity due to
cracking, crushing of concrete, and yielding of reinforcement
were taken into consideration during the analysis [15].
ABAQUS has an advanced and extensive library for ele-
ments and materials [15]. As shown in Fig. 15a, concrete was
modeled using 3-dimensional, 8-node solid elements; C3D8,
with three degrees of freedom for each node; translations u,
v, and w in the three orthogonal directions; x, y and z, respec-
tively. Steel reinforcement was modeled as 2-node truss ele-
ments also with three degrees of freedom per each node. The
bonding between reinforcement and concrete was achieved in
ABAQUS using the ‘‘embedded” technique as shown in
Fig. 15b, where, steel reinforcement was used as the embedded
element and the concrete was designated as the host element.
Supporting and loading plates that transfer the reactions from
and to the concrete elements are modeled as rigid solid parts.
Similar to concrete beam, the three dimensional solid element
C3D8 was chosen to model the steel plates on both loading
and supporting positions. Figs. 16 and 17 show the different
model components.
To avoid stress concentrations within the concrete beam,
the reaction forces were transferred to the beam through plates

(a) Concrete model (C3D8) (b) Embedded technique

Fig. 15 Elements used in FEM analysis.

Please cite this article in press as: R.T.S. Mabrouk, A. Mounir, Behavior of RC beams with tension lap splices confined with transverse reinforcement using different
types of concrete under pure bending, Alexandria Eng. J. (2017), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.aej.2017.05.001
Behavior of RC beams with tension lap splices
Fig. 16 Model for solid components.
Fig. 17 Model for truss components.
having the same dimension of the spreading girder used on the
loading frame experimentally and were defined as rigid bodies
having a very high modulus of elasticity in order to be un-
deformable. Plates transfer reactions from and to concrete
are connected to the concrete beam solid element using the
‘‘tie” option, which means that parts cannot be disconnected
during loading.
Fig. 18 Typical stress-strain curves for both concrete and steel.
Please cite this article in press as: R.T.S. Mabrouk, A. Mounir, Behavior of RC beams with tension lap splices confined with transverse reinforcement using different
types of concrete under pure bending, Alexandria Eng. J. (2017), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.aej.2017.05.001
9
4.1. Concrete model
Reinforced concrete is a complicated material to be modeled
within finite element packages. A proper material model in
FEM should be able to simulate both the elastic and plastic
behavior of concrete in compression and tension. Using ABA-
QUS, damage can be simulated with either of the three crack
models for reinforced concrete elements; namely Smeared
crack concrete model, Brittle crack concrete model, and Con-
crete damaged plasticity model [15]. In this study, the concrete
damaged plasticity model was utilized as it is capable of repre-
senting the complete inelastic behavior of concrete both in ten-
sion and in compression including damage characteristics. The
concrete damaged plasticity model assumes that the two main
failure mechanisms in concrete are the tensile cracking and the
compressive crushing. A typical stress-strain curve of concrete
and steel modeled in this study is shown in Fig. 18a and b,
respectively.
From Fig. 18a, it can be seen that concrete in compression
is described with an initial linear-elastic range up to 30–40% of
its compressive strength after which it is represented by a plas-
tic behavior. Concrete compressive behavior was input to the
ABAQUS by applying a numerical expression that was devel-
oped by Hognestad [16] as shown using the following
equations:
 
r e e
¼2

1 For ð0 < e < e0 Þ ð1Þ
rcu e0 2e0
 
r e  e0
¼ 1  0:15 For ðe0 < e < ecu Þ ð2Þ
rcu ecu  e0
where rcu is the maximum concrete compressive strength, e is
the strain corresponding to each stress r value, e0 is the strain
corresponding to peak stress usually around 0.002 and ecu is
the ultimate strain usually around 0.0035. The behavior was
plotted on a characteristic stress-strain curve for normal
strength concrete of 30 MPa as shown in Fig. 19 applying both
Eqs. (1) and (2).
The uniaxial compressive strength of concrete was designed
to be 30 MPa for NC and 90 MPa for HC but the input values
used in ABAQUS models were the actual values taken from
test cubes at casting time for each beam separately to perform
10 R.T.S. Mabrouk, A. Mounir

35 instead of the original model adopted by the ABAQUS man-

ual as shown in Fig. 20.
30
Plasticity is generally defined as the unrecoverable deforma-
25 tion after all loads have been removed. Damage is generally
Stress (MPa)

characterized by the reduction in elastic stiffness. ABAQUS

20
specify five parameters as inputs to completely describe the
15 plastic behavior of concrete; K, €, rb/rc and W. The default val-
ues according to ABAQUS manual [15] were used as the fol-
10
lowing 2/3, 0.1, 1.16 and 36° respectively. K: The ratio of the
5 second stress invariant on the tensile for any given value of
0 the pressure invariant P such that the maximum principle
0 0.001 0.002 0.003 0.004 stress in negative. €: Plastic potential eccentricity. It is a small
positive value which expresses the rate of approach of the plas-
Strain tic potential hyperbola to its asymptote. It can be calculated as
a ratio of tensile strength to compressive strength. rb/rc: The
Fig. 19 Equivalent uniaxial stress-strain curve for 30 MPa
ratio of the strength in the biaxial state to the strength in the
concrete.
uniaxial state. W: Dilation angle. It is interpreted as a concrete
internal friction angle.
a fair comparative study between FEM and experimental The effect of the damage is different in tension and com-
results. pression, and the degraded response of concrete is taken into
When subjected to tension, the concrete stress is assumed to account by introducing two independent scalar damage vari-
increase linearly till its tensile strength is reached. Concrete ables for tension and compression respectively. The damage
tensile behavior is input to the ABAQUS by applying the stan- variables can take values from zero, representing the undam-
dard equation in Eurocode 2 1992-1 [14] as shown in Eqs. (3) aged material, to one, which represents total loss of strength.
and (4). The elastic part of the curve describing tensile behav- Eqs. (6) and (7) show the damage index for compression and
ior can be represented by Eq. (5). tension, respectively.

fctm ¼ 0:3
f2=3 6 C50=C60 ð3Þ rc ¼ ð1  dc Þ
E
ðec  ee Þ ð6Þ

ck

fctm ¼ 2:12
logð1 þ ðfcm =10ÞÞ > C50=C60
fctm
ee ¼
E and ee is the elastic strain.
where fctm is the tensile strength of concrete, fck is the charac-
teristic cylinder strength, fcm is the target mean cylinder
strength, E is the modulus of elasticity and ee is the elastic
strain. C50/C60 represents the strength class equivalent to
fcu = 60 N/mm2.
After the crack is initiated, the tensile stress starts to
decrease by means of a softening response [15]. In order to sim-
ulate the complete tensile behavior of reinforced concrete in
ABAQUS, a simplified post failure stress-strain relationship
for tension according to Nayal and Rasheed [17] is adopted
ð4Þ rt ¼ ð1  dt Þ
E
ðet  ee Þ ð7Þ
The damage parameter value (dc) is defined as the ratio of
the inelastic strain to the total strain, E is modulus of elasticity
ð5Þ
4.2. Steel reinforcement model
The reinforcing steel is assumed to be elastic-perfectly plastic
material in both tension and compression. The steel input data
for all beams were taken as follows: in elastic zone; the elastic
behavior was modeled as linear and isotropic. The modulus of
elasticity and Poisson’s ratio of reinforcing steel are input to
ABAQUS for elastic behavior simulation. However, once the
stress in the steel exceeds the yield stress, permanent plastic

Fig. 20 Tension stiffening model according to (a) ABAQUS manual and (b) Nayal and Rasheed simplified model.

Please cite this article in press as: R.T.S. Mabrouk, A. Mounir, Behavior of RC beams with tension lap splices confined with transverse reinforcement using different
types of concrete under pure bending, Alexandria Eng. J. (2017), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.aej.2017.05.001
Behavior of RC beams with tension lap splices 11

deformation begins to occur. The stiffness of the steel
decreases once the material yields. The material model used
for reinforcing steel follows the standard stress-strain diagram
in Eurocode 2 1992-1 [14] as shown in Fig. 21.
4.3. Experimental verification
analysis using ABAQUS are presented. The goal of this com-
parison is to assess the behavior of the lap splices in the beams
under study and to assure that the elements, material proper-
ties, real constants and convergence criteria are adequate to
model the behavior of reinforced concrete beams containing

In this section, a comparison between the results obtained 120

from both the experimental program and the finite element
100

Total vercal load (KN)

80

60

40 NC-L30-0T6-V

Experiment
20
ABAQUS

0
0 2 4 6 8 10
Deflecon (mm)

Fig. 24 Load deflection curve for NC-L30-0T6-V.

Fig. 21 Design stress-strain diagram of reinforcing steel.

120
120
100
Total vercal load (KN)

100
Total vercal load (KN)

80
80
60
60

40 NC-L30-2T6-V
40
Experiment Experiment
20 20
ABAQUS ABAQUS

0 0
0 10 20 30 40 0 2 4 6 8 10
Deflecon (mm) Deflecon (mm)

Fig. 22 Load deflection curve for NC-L00-0T6-V. Fig. 25 Load deflection curve for NC-L30-2T6-V.

140
120

120 100
Total vercal load (KN)
Total vercal load (KN)

100 80
80
60
60
HC-L00-0T6-V 40 NC-L30-4T6-V
40
Experiment Experiment
20 20
ABAQUS ABAQUS

0 0
0 20 40 60 0 2 4 6 8 10
Deflecon (mm) Deflecon (mm)

Fig. 23 Load deflection curve for HC-L00-0T6-V. Fig. 26 Load deflection curve for NC-L30-4T6-V.

Please cite this article in press as: R.T.S. Mabrouk, A. Mounir, Behavior of RC beams with tension lap splices confined with transverse reinforcement using different
types of concrete under pure bending, Alexandria Eng. J. (2017), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.aej.2017.05.001
12 R.T.S. Mabrouk, A. Mounir

tensile reinforcement lap splice with or without transverse rein-
forcement within the splice zone.
Currently, there are no specific models incorporated in the
design codes to simulate the behavior of self-compacting con-
crete instead of normal concrete in terms of material mod-
elling. Therefore, the three beams cast using self-compacting
concrete were not studied using ABAQUS. Further study
and investigations are needed in this area.
Figs. 22–34 show the comparison between experimental
data and results obtained using ABAQUS regarding the load

120
120
100
Total vercal load (KN)

100

Total vercal load (KN)

80
80
60
60
40 NC-L30-6T6-V
40 HC-L30-0T6-V
Experiment
20 Experiment
ABAQUS 20
ABAQUS
0
0
0 10 20 30 40
0 10 20 30 40
Deflecon (mm) Deflecon (mm)
Fig. 27 Load deflection curve for NC-L30-6T6-V. Fig. 30 Load deflection curve for HC-L30-0T6-V.

120 140

100 120
Total vercal load (KN)

Total vercal load (KN)

100
80
80
60
60
40 HC-L30-6T6-V
NC-L30-2T8-V 40
Experiment
20 Experiment
20 ABAQUS
ABAQUS
0 0
0 2 4 6 8 10 0 10 20 30 40 50
Deflecon (mm) Deflecon (mm)

Fig. 28 Load deflection curve for NC-L30-2T8-V. Fig. 31 Load deflection curve for HC-L30-6T6-V.

120
120

100
100
Total vercal load (KN)

Total vercal load (KN)

80 80

60 60

40 NC-L30-NT6-V 40 NC-L30-4T6-S

Experiment Experiment
20 20
ABAQUS ABAQUS

0 0
0 5 10 15 20 25 0 2 4 6 8 10
Deflecon (mm) Deflecon (mm)

Fig. 29 Load deflection curve for NC-L30-NT6-V. Fig. 32 Load deflection curve for NC-L30-4T6-S.

Please cite this article in press as: R.T.S. Mabrouk, A. Mounir, Behavior of RC beams with tension lap splices confined with transverse reinforcement using different
types of concrete under pure bending, Alexandria Eng. J. (2017), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.aej.2017.05.001
Behavior of RC beams with tension lap splices 13

120 deflection curves for the studied beams. The curves are shown
up to the failure point as the post failure part is not well rep-
Total vercal load (KN) 100 resented using ABAQUS. Regarding the values of the ultimate
deflection, there is a rather big difference in the values obtained
80 from experiment and those estimated using finite element. One
reason for that can be that the post cracking stiffness and sim-
60 ulation of the reinforced concrete elements are not well repre-
sented which is another point that requires further
40 NC-L30-4T6-R
investigation. Overall, the general load – deflection curves esti-
Experiment mated using ABAQUS followed the same trend compared to
20 the ones obtained from experiment. Table 4 summarizes the
ABAQUS
output results. It can be seen that the differences in case of ulti-
0 mate load capacity did not exceed 20% except for three cases.
0 2 4 6 8 10
It can be said that the results obtained from the finite element
Deflecon (mm) analysis in terms of the ultimate load gave a reasonable agree-
ment when compared with the experimental data.
Fig. 33 Load deflection curve for NC-L30-4T6-R.

5. Conclusions
120

100 Sixteen concrete beams containing an overlapping splice of

Total vercal load (KN)

two bars at the tension side of the beam were studied under
80 constant bending moment. Comparison with FEM program
ABAQUS was conducted. Based on the analysis and compar-
60 ison of ultimate load capacity, modes of failure, load-
deflection relationship and ductility of the beams studied in
40 NC-L30-4T6-C this research, the following conclusions were made:

Experiment 1. Regardless of concrete type, the failure of beams with

20
ABAQUS lap splices at mid span without transverse reinforcement
0
was violent and occurred along the entire length of the
0 2 4 6 8 10 splice.
2. Adding stirrups along the splice zone improved the
Deflecon (mm) behavior as transverse reinforcement eliminated the for-
Fig. 34 Load deflection curve for NC-L30-4T6-C.
mation of splitting cracks at tension splice zone.

Table 4 Experimental data vs ABAQUS output results.

a
% represents ratio of values estimated by ABAQUS to values from Experimental results.

Please cite this article in press as: R.T.S. Mabrouk, A. Mounir, Behavior of RC beams with tension lap splices confined with transverse reinforcement using different
types of concrete under pure bending, Alexandria Eng. J. (2017), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.aej.2017.05.001
14
3. It is highly recommended to increase number of stirrups
inside splice zone to be spaced at about 60 mm which
gave the best results within the beams in this study.
4. Increasing number of stirrups provided inside splice
zone with smaller bar diameter instead of larger bar
diameter with the same reinforcement ratio crossing
the potential plane of failure resulted in a drastic change
in the mode of failure but a slight change in ultimate
capacity.
5. Uniform distribution of stirrups along splice length has
an important role on improving beam ductility and
mode of failure as compared to nonuniform
distribution.
6. Using special shapes of stirrups around spliced bars
affect the beam behavior. Based on this study, using
rectangular stirrups within lap splice caused the beam
to behave closest to that provided with normal vertical
stirrups with the advantage of rectangular stirrups con-
suming less amount of steel.
7. Rectangular confining stirrups around spliced bar can
be an economical and practical method to improve the
behavior of tension lap splices in beams.
8. Ductility and behavior improvement due to increasing
stirrups along splice length do not have the same rate
for all types of concrete indicating that concrete type is
an important parameter on the response of beam to
the contribution of stirrups in stress transfer mechanism.
9. For high strength concrete, good confinement using
transverse reinforcement in the form of stirrups
improved the behavior of the beam with lap splice.
10. For the same concrete compressive strength and for well
confined concrete, bond strength in self-compacting con-
crete is found to be higher than normal vibrated con-
crete indicating that this method of concrete
production and placement can be an adequate replace-
ment to normal vibrated concrete in case of tension
spliced bars in beams.
11. The results from the finite element simulation agree rea-
sonably well with the experimental observations with
regard to load-deflection response. This indicates that
the constitutive models used for concrete and reinforcing
steel are able to capture both elastic and plastic behavior
reasonably well.
12. Consequently, it can be said that ABAQUS represents a
promising tool to be used for the nonlinear analysis and
design of such elements.
Acknowledgment
Deep gratitude and special thanks are given to Prof. Dr.
Akram M. Torkey for his continuous support and help
throughout this research.
Please cite this article in press as: R.T.S. Mabrouk, A. Mounir, Behavior of RC beams with tension lap splices confined with transverse reinforcement using different
types of concrete under pure bending, Alexandria Eng. J. (2017), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.aej.2017.05.001
R.T.S. Mabrouk, A. Mounir
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