Shear strength of high-performance fibrereinforced cementitious composites beams with longitudinal reinforcement

Recently, there have been many studies using high-performance fibre-reinforced cementitious composites to make up for the weaknesses of construction materials based on cement. However, information about the shear behaviour of high-performance fibre-reinforced cementitious composites beams is very limited, because most studies were focused on their flexural behaviour. In this study, therefore, an extensive experimental programme was conducted to investigate the shear strength of high-performance fibre-reinforced cementitious composites beams with conventional longitudinal reinforcement. A total of 48 specimens were tested, varying in fibre content, longitudinal-reinforcement ratio and shear-span-to-depth ratio. From the test results, it was determined that the shear strength of the experimental beams increased with increasing tensile strength of high-performance fibre-reinforced cementitious composites, whereas it was not significantly affected by the tensile ductility of high-performance fibrereinforced cementitious composites. As the longitudinal-reinforcement ratio increased to 3%, or the shear-span-to-depth ratio decreased, the shear strength of the high-performance fibrereinforced cementitious composites beams increased. The results of this study will be useful for deriving a model describing the shear strength of high-performance fibre-reinforced cementitious composites beams with longitudinal reinforcement.