Assessment of shear capacity of reinforced concrete slender beams using tire steel fiber

The response of reinforced concrete is frequently nonlinear and exhibits quasi-brittle failure consistently throughout their service lives. Several materials and procedures have been used to boost the capacity some of which are often expensive. Waste tire steel fiber was used in this study for environmental sustainability, ensuring economy, efficiency, and elegance as part of the SDG goals. Nine (9) RC slender beams with dimensions 1500 x 250 x 120 mm were cast and loaded at a shear span to depth ratio of 2.44. Slender beams with fiber contents of 0.5 and 1% by volume of concrete and without fiber were considered and subjected to increasing static loading to understand the failure response and post-peak behavior after the beam's ultimate failure. The dominant failure observed throughout the investigation was shear. The addition of 1% waste fiber increased the shear capacity of the beam without shear reinforcement by 10%, 0.5% waste fiber together with shear reinforcement increased the shear capacity and ductility by 17% and 41% over the shear-reinforced beams without waste fiber, and about 58% greater than in beams without the shear reinforcement and waste fiber. The applicability of FEM analysis under the elastoplastic constitutive model of RC elements replicates consistency with the experiment.