Performance of large scale steel fiber reinforced concrete deep beam with single opening under monotonic loading

The design of complex, discontinuous stress trajectory regions (D-regions) is complex in nature and cumbersome to design. The performance of a large scale steel fiber reinforced concrete (SFRC) deep beam with single opening under monotonic loading was tested under controlled conditions. The main objective of this study was to see if Steel Fiber Reinforced Concrete (SFRC), used as a better material than reinforced concrete (RC) offered an alternate to the cumbersome and iterative steps involved in strut-and-tie (STM) methodology. Additionally, a similar reinforced concrete (RC) specimen was tested under the same controlled condition designed with classical strut-and-tie model design methodology reinforced using conventional steel bars.;Material testing was conducted on the materials tested on the large scale specimens to ensure that the actual material mechanical properties were known for the analysis. Computer Aided Strut and Tie (CAST) software was used to quantify the experimental data obtained from the controlled conditions testing.;The two beams were compared and contrasted throughout the study to indicate the performance of one beam compared to the other. This study provides information on the viability of using steel fiber reinforced concrete in complex D-regions in structural elements.