Shear Strength of RC Beams without and with Stirrups: Analytical Expressions and Comparison with Experimental Data

Abstract

In this paper, some recent analytical expressions including those of codes for shear strength calculation of reinforced concrete (RC) beams without and with stirrups are discussed and verified against experimental data available in the literature. An analytical expression proposed by the author is also introduced and discussed. Two different sets of experimental data were analyzed: one for beams without stirrups composed of 719 data and the other one for beams with stirrups composed of 152 data. Comparison between experimental data and analytical results showed that all of the analytical expressions of international codes are conservative in prediction. The proposed equation gives the same grade of accuracy of the other existing analytical expressions for the prediction of experimental data, and it is derived by a mechanical approach. Comparison shows that although most of the analytical expressions give safe and conservative results, more effort is still necessary to reduce the high scatter of prediction of all the expressions used here, especially for beams without stirrups.