Behavioral Investigation of Reinforced Concrete T-Beams with Distributed Reinforcement in the Tension Flange

Abstract

Current design codes and specifications allow for part of the bonded flexure tension reinforcement to be distributed over an effective flange width when the T-beams' flanges are in tension. This study presents an experimental and numerical investigation on the reinforced concrete flanged section's flexural behavior when reinforcement in the tension flange is laterally distributed. To achieve the goals of the study, numerical analysis using the finite element method was conducted on discretized flanged beam models validated via experimentally tested T-beam specimen. Parametric study was performed to investigate the effect of different parameters on the T-beams flexural behavior. The study revealed that a significant reduction in the beam flexural strength with increasing deflection is encountered as a sizable percentage of reinforcement is distributed over the wider flange width. The study recommended that not more than 33% of the tension reinforcement may be distributed over an effective flange width not wider than ℓn/10. This result confirms and agrees well the ACI 318 limit on the effective width to be less than ℓn/10.

Evaluation of the structural performance of T-section beams with construction defects utilizing numerical analysis

“…The results clearly demonstrate that an increase in the diameter of the longitudinal reinforcement substantially enhances the load-bearing capacity of the slab. These results agreed well with the findings from previous work (Ahmed et al, 1989;Pansuk and Sato, 2007;Bayoumi, 2022;Abbas and Fadala, 2021;Chen, 2016;National Education Policy, 2020).…”

“…frontiersin.org failure for these models were measured at 32 mm, 36 mm, 41.5 mm, and 46.5 mm for GIIINT-1, GIIINT-2, GIIINT-3, and GIIINT-4, respectively. This is also in line with the work of Abbas and Fadala (2021).…”

“…With increasing loads, multiple cracks developed in the contact region between the slab and the beam, ultimately culminating in the failure of the models. This is line with other studies who investigated the effect of the spacing of slab secondary reinforcement (Huang et al, 2019;Bayoumi, 2022;Abbas and Fadala, 2021;Ayensa et al, 2019). An isometric view of the deflection for model GIM-1.…”

“…ANSYS software were performed to simulate the behavior of T-section beams subjected to different loading conditions as nonlinear finite element analyses (FEA) (Bhashyam, 2002;Abbas and Fadala, 2021;Wang and Cheng, 2020). The beams as threedimensional deformable solid objects with non-linear material characteristics were presented.…”