Resumen de Experimental assessment of the shear resistant behaviour of precast concrete beams with top cast-in-place concrete slab
Construction with precast concrete elements is a booming sector due to the acceleration of the construction process, the saving of costs arising from the on-site construction and the quality and finish improvement, among others. Precast concrete beams are frequently used in the precast construction of civil engineering structures such as bridges and buildings. Construction with these beams requires the pouring of a cast-in-place concrete layer on top of the beams after their placement, which works as a unifying element to ensure structural integrity. Structural elements obtained in this way are known as concrete composite beams.
In composite beams, some aspects such as the shear strength of the interface between concretes have been studied in multiple publications. However, their shear behaviour has not yet been analysed in depth. Consequently, there is very little information, both in the existing literature and in current design codes, about the shear strength of these elements, how the presence of an interface between the concretes influences the shear strength or how the cast-in-place concrete slab contributes to the shear strength.
The aim of this doctoral thesis is to study the shear strength of concrete composite beams. For this purpose, an extensive experimental programme is developed, consisting of monolithic and composite beams with and without transverse reinforcement, with rectangular or T-shaped cross-section and with concretes of different qualities in the precast beam and in the slab. A total of 69 reinforced concrete beams are tested under shear forces in order to analyse the different variables of interest in shear strength.
Based on the experimental results, a mechanical model for predicting the shear strength of concrete composite beams with rectangular and T-shaped cross-section is proposed, which is also applicable to monolithic T-beams.
In addition, to support the experimental study and the mechanical model, some specimens of the experimental programme are numerically modelled.
All in all, the aim is to improve the current state of knowledge in this field by providing a large number of experimental results and analysing the design parameters, as well as to lay the foundations for the development of a formulation for the design of existing structures and the assessment of existing ones that is globally accepted by the scientific community.
