Mechanics of Shear Failure in Fiber-Reinforced Concrete Beams

In this paper, a new model, which can be solved either numerically or analytically, is presented for predicting the shear strength of fiber-reinforced concrete beams. This approach is based on predicting the sliding capacity of an inclined crack through the application of fundamental partial-interaction and shear friction theories. A segmental approach is applied to predict this capacity because it has been shown to be able to produce simple analytical solutions while explicitly allowing for the influence of fiber reinforcement and tension stiffening. Once developed, the model is validated against a range of experimental tests and its accuracy is compared to both codified approaches and other approaches in the literature.