Ductility of High-Performance Concrete Beams with High-Strength Lateral Reinforcement

The purpose of this study is to investigate the flexural behavior of high workability high-performance concrete (HPC) beams with high-strength transverse reinforcement under static load. A total of 21 beam specimens were made in this study: seven were normal concrete beams and the rest were HPC beams. The parameters included concrete strength, amount of tension reinforcement, amount of compression reinforcement, amount of transverse reinforcement, and strength of transverse reinforcement. The results show that HPC beams have slightly higher strengths than normal concrete beams. In addition, an increase of tension reinforcement will increase the strength but decrease the ductility of the beams. An increase of compression steel and concrete strength will increase the ductility of the beams effectively. HPC beams show better ductility than normal concrete beams. With the same rsfyh value of transverse reinforcement, the beams can achieve the same ductility. HPC beams have better crack control over normal concrete beams. Beams with high-strength shear reinforcement exhibit the same crack control ability as beams with normal strength shear reinforcement.