Behavior of Arched Self-Compacted Perforated Reinforced Concrete Beams

Abstract

Providing web openings in reinforced concrete (RC) beams facilitates passing the pipes and ducts of utility services as well as it has a good-looking appearance when arranged in regular module. The current paper presents both experimental and numerical investigations on the overall structural performance of two-hinged perforated self-compacted RC arched beams. Three main factors were studied; namely, the percentage of mass loss (9% 16% and 29%) due to the provided perforations, the effect of the curvature ratio and the perforations shape (circular, oval, and square). Therefore, three perforation sizes were studied having perforation diameter to the beam total depth ratio (D/t) of 0.33, 0.50, and 0.67. Accordingly, five perforated arched beams, one solid reference arched beam and one solid straight beam were prepared and configured then tested under concentrated loading till complete collapse. Besides, numerical validation using ABAQUS program has been conducted on the perforated arched beams. It was found that the ached beam showed remarkable ultimate capacity compared to that of straight beam; however the strength gain due to arching effect reduce significantly based on the perforation size and shape. Furthermore, the obtained responses along with the mode of failure from the experimental test were compared with the predicted ones from the numerical simulation. Comparison showed good agreement between the displayed mode of failure, ultimate capacity and the developed mid-span deflection obtained from both numerical simulation and the experimental tests.