Influence of flange on the shear capacity of reinforced concrete beams

In structural engineering (RC, steel, etc.) it is usual to base the shear strength of members on the web only-e.g. in RC the stirrups used are usually called "web reinforcement". Presently all codes, and several researches, base the strength of members on the capacity of the web alone. 93 tests of T-beams failing in shear available from the literature are studied in this work to estimate the influence of flanges on the shear capacity of RC beams. These include 32 ones without web reinforcement and 61 with stirrups. Comparison between test results and theoretical shear capacity show that all available equations conservatively estimate the occurrence of shear failure. In this work an equation for predicting the contribution of the flange to shear capacity in T-beams is presented. The best available design method obtained from the literature leads to a coefficient of variation (COV) of 17.58% compared to 13.46% for the proposed design method in this work.