An Experimental Study to Predict a New Formula for Calculating the Deflection in Wide Concrete Beams Reinforced with Shear Steel Plates

A conventional stirrup is widely used in all concrete beams as shear reinforcement to prevent shear failure that happens suddenly and unexpectedly without previous warning. It is a great challenge to figure out another type of stirrup and establish a new formula to calculate the deflection. This article offers an experimental study that predicts a novel formula for calculating deflection in concrete beams reinforced with shear steel plates as a stirrup. The experimental work was established and consists of 16 wide reinforced concrete beams with 216x560x1800 mm dimensions. Instead of the conventional reinforcing stirrups, steel plates with 3.0, 4.0, and 5.0 mm thickness in longitudinal and transverse dimensions and for one-half of the samples, recycled PVC round bubbles were used as the variables explored in this study. In addition, the variables include an examination of the opening form of shear steel plates with varying distances between them. For calculating the deflection of wide beams, a new formula for the effective moment of inertia is proposed, and it yields excellent agreement for several investigations, with a coefficient of variation of 5.48 percent. The formulae for calculating the maximum deflection are established using ACI 318M-14 and EC 2.