Steel fiber-reinforced concrete corbels:experimental behavior and shear strength prediction

In the present paper, an experimental research is presentedregarding the flexural behavior of corbels in plain and fibrousconcrete and in the presence of steel bars. This research considersthe influence of the type of concrete grade (normal- and highstrengthconcretes), of the fiber percentage and of the arrangementand percentage of the steel bars on the flexural behavior of thecorbels. The results in terms of load-deflection curves and crackpatterns show the effectiveness in using fibrous reinforced concretecorbels as well as in the presence of stirrups ensuring adequatestrength and deformation capacity in reinforced concrete corbels.Therefore, a simplified analytical model is proposed to calculatethe shear strength of fibrous reinforced concrete corbels as well asin the presence of stirrups. The expression proposed for the calculationof the shear strength is then compared with other expressionsavailable in the literature. Finally, the experimental results generatedin terms of bearing capacity and those available in the literatureare compared with the results obtained through the proposed modeland with existing analytical expressions present in the literatureshowing good agreement