Numerical Study of Behavior of Simply Supported RC Deep Beams with Openings

Generally reinforced concrete deep beams are used as transfer girders، pile caps، coupling beams and foundation walls. Openings are frequently provided in RC deep beams to facilitate essential services، such as ventilating ducts، water supply and drainage pipes، network access، or even movement from one room to another. Existence of opening leads to disturbance of compressive force path from the loading point to the support. Due to the lack of experiment on deep beam with opening، code provisions do not give any explicit guidance to designing these elements with opening. So this research studies the behavior of reinforced concrete deep beams with opening using finite element methods. To this end the commercial software ABAQUS/standard was used. The accuracy of model was verified with available experimental data. in two separate parts the behavior of these members was studied. First، 68 beams with opening were modeled to study the effect of size and position of opening، arrangement of web reinforcement، ratio of clear span to depth and ratio of shear span to depth. In all of these beams depth and thickness was 750 and 100 millimeter respectively. The most effective parameter on behavior and ultimate load capacity was arrangement of web reinforcement. Also the size effect on the behavior of these members was studied. So 8 beams were modeled and result indicates that by increasing size of the beams the normalized shear strength decreases. Generally reinforced concrete deep beams are used as transfer girders، pile caps، coupling beams and foundation walls. Openings are frequently provided in RC deep beams to facilitate essential services، such as ventilating ducts، water supply and drainage pipes، network access، or even movement from one room to another. Existence of opening leads to disturbance of compressive force path from the loading point to the support. Due to the lack of experiment on deep beam with opening، code provisions do not give any explicit guidance to designing these elements with opening. So this research studies the behavior of reinforced concrete deep beams with opening using finite element methods. To this end the commercial software ABAQUS/standard was used. The accuracy of model was verified with available experimental data. in two separate parts the behavior of these members was studied. First، 68 beams with opening were modeled to study the effect of size and position of opening، arrangement of web reinforcement، ratio of clear span to depth and ratio of shear span to depth. In all of these beams depth and thickness was 750 and 100 millimeter respectively. The most effective parameter on behavior and ultimate load capacity was arrangement of web reinforcement. Also the size effect on the behavior of these members was studied. So 8 beams were modeled and result indicates that by increasing size of the beams the normalized shear strength decreases.