Shear and flexural strength of reinforced concrete beams made with recycled coarse aggregate concrete

Abstract Concrete production relies heavily on minerals and nonrenewable resources, specifically natural aggregate. However, waste from construction and demolition projects accumulates in landfills, contaminating the air and groundwater. This affects economies by increasing annual expenditures. The solution can be found by employing concrete made from recycled concrete aggregates (RCA). In this study, finite element (FE) simulations with ABAQUS software are conducted to investigate the shear and flexural behavior of beams made of RCA. The accuracy and dependability of the FE models are validated by contrasting the FE results with those of previous experimental tests. Sixty FE models with different parameters, including various coarse natural aggregate replacement levels (i.e., 0%, 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100%), compressive strengths (i.e., 25, 35, and 40 MPa), and reinforcement rebar diameters (i.e., 14, 16, and 18 mm), are numerically investigated. Moreover, additional experimental results reported in the literature (30 for shear and 61 for flexural tests) are utilized to verify the American Concrete Institute Code (ACI318-19), the Saudi Building Code (SBC304-18), and the Egyptian Code of Practice (ECP203-2020) provisions for shear and flexure capacity. Shear results showed that the load capacity decreased with increased RCA replacements. However, the effect of RCA on the flexural capacity is limited. The project proves that the provisions of the ACI318-19, SBC304-18, and ECP203-2020 codes for calculating the shear and flexural capacities can still be used for beams made of RCA.