Flexural and cracking performance of ultra-high performance concrete beams with high-strength steel reinforcements

Abstract

In this study, the flexural and cracking performance of ultra-high performance concrete (UHPC) beams reinforced with high-strength steel reinforcement (HSSR) is investigated. Four beam specimens, including two UHPC beams and two normal-strength concrete (NSC) beams with different HSSR ratios were tested under flexure. The effect of concrete type and HSSR ratio on the flexural behaviour was evaluated. The failure mode, load-deflection response, stiffness, ductility and strain of the concrete and HSSR were discussed. Test results show that UHPC coupled with HSSR achieved better flexural performance and the ability to limit the development of the crack. The flexural capacity, deflection and stiffness for the UHPC beams were increased but the ductility was decreased as the HSSR ratio increased. The flexural behaviors of UHPC beams were predicted by section analysis. The flexural performance of HSSR-UHPC beams should consider the contribution of steel fibre to the tensile strength. Considering the influence of steel fibre, an equation was proposed to predict the average crack spacing. UHPC beams showed excellent agreement with the experimental results. The maximum crack width of 630 MPa reinforced UHPC beams was calculated by NF P 18-710 in accordance with the test results.

Keywords:

• Ultra-high performance concrete
• high-strength steel reinforcement
• flexural performance
• cracking behaviour
• section analysis

Authors’ contributions

Jianxin Zhang: Investigation, Validation, Methodology, Formal analysis, Data curation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. Yueyang Zhai: Investigation, Writing – review & editing. Xiaoxue Zhao: Investigation, Formal analysis, Data curation, Writing – original draft. Pang Chen: Investigation, Validation, Methodology. Tingwei Zhang: Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this article.

Data availability statement

The data used to support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon request.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 52208160); Central Guidance Local Science and Technology Development Project, China (236Z4505G); the Science and Technology Research Project of Higher Education Institutions in Hebei Province, China (CXY2023016); and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, Civil Aviation University of China (3122022080).