Investigation of Shear Fatigue Behavior of Reinforced Concrete Beams Under Moving Load

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Date

2020-01-16

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Addis Ababa University

Abstract

Reinforced concrete beams subjected to moving cyclic loads has a reduced fatigue life as compared to that of fixed-point pulsating loading. Moving loads has more damaging effect to the concrete, this might cause brittle shear failure. In this study experimental and analytical investigation was conducted on six reinforced concrete beams without web reinforcements, to study the behavior of shear fatigue in reinforced concrete beams subjected to moving loads. One beam was made to fail monotonically to determine the static shear capacity. Three beams were subjected by a step wise moving load to 85%, 75% and 68% of the static shear capacity. The other two beams were subjected to a fixed-point pulsating load to 75% of the static shear capacity, but in different loading location (at midspan and at a location where the shear force to capacity ratio is maximum). Step wise moving load caused faster shear strength degradation compared to fixed pulsating load. Rate of increase in residual deflections with number of load cycles in step wise moving loads is higher compared to stationary cyclic loading which shows higher damage accumulation more than that of fixed pulsating load. Crack formation and propagation was monitored throughout the experimental programs by manually marking when new cracks formed. In fatigue loading the major diagonal cracks in beams are more horizontal than that of monotonic loading conditions. Depending on the amplitude of loading it is difficult for diagonal cracks to propagate into the compression zone in case of fatigue loading.

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Keywords

Step-wise moving load, fixed-point pulsating load, shear fatigue, RC beam

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