Effectiveness of the use of steel fibres on the torsional behaviour of flanged concrete beams

The behaviour under torsion of reinforced concrete beams with steel fibres as mass reinforcement is experimentally investigated. Short hooked-ended steel fibres with aspect ratio l(f)/d(f) = 37.5 are used. Test results of 35 beams with rectangular, L-shaped and T-shaped cross-sections tested in pure torsion are presented and discussed. Various configurations of conventional and fibre steel reinforcement are examined. The experimental program includes (i) plain concrete beams (control specimens), (ii) specimens with longitudinal reinforcing bars and (iii) specimens with bars and stirrups. All cases are examined with 0%, 1% and 3% steel fibre volume fractions. The use of steel fibres as the only shear torsional reinforcement is also reported herein, in an attempt to examine the effectiveness of fibres as a potential replacement of stirrups. Test results indicated that fibrous concrete beams exhibited improved overall torsional performance with respect to the corresponding non-fibrous control beams. The addition of steel fibres was essential to the tested beams without or with inadequate conventional steel reinforcement. Fibres prevented the sudden brittle failure of both rectangular and non-rectangular beams and proved to be under some circumstances adequate to provide for enhanced torsional moment capacities, even in the case of full replacement of stirrups with steel fibres. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.