Engineering Structures 39 (2012) 176–186

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Engineering Structures
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/engstruct

Flexural and shear behaviors of reinforced ultrahigh toughness cementitious

composite beams without web reinforcement under concentrated load
Shilang Xu a,b,⇑, Lijun Hou a, Xiufang Zhang a
a
Department of Civil Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, China
b
Institute of Advanced Engineering Structures and Materials, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Ultrahigh toughness cementitious composite (UHTCC) behaves strain-hardening and multiple-cracking
Received 18 January 2011 when subjected to tensile load. The current work investigates both bending and shear performances of
Revised 1 January 2012 steel reinforced UHTCC (RUHTCC) beams through the bending test under concentrated load. The failure
Accepted 11 January 2012
mode was designed from flexure to flexure-shear to shear through varying reinforcement ratio in beam.
Available online 22 March 2012
The experimental results showed that for flexural behavior, RUHTCC beams presented high load-carrying
capacity, deformation ability and numerous fine cracks around mid-span region in comparison with
Keywords:
ordinary reinforced concrete (RC) beam. Based on the internal force equilibrium, the theoretical equation
Ultrahigh toughness cementitious
composite (UHTCC)
for determining the moment of inertia of fully cracked section of RUHTCC beam is proposed, and the pre-
Concentrated load dicted maximum deflection at service load according to proposed equation based on bilinear tensile and
Flexural behavior compressive constitutive models agrees well with the tested value. For shear behavior, RUHTCC beam
Shear behavior exhibited shear strength about 1.91 times that of RC control beam and a large reserve of shear bearing
Crack pattern capacity after the shear cracking due to the diagonal multiple-cracking pattern and the stable crack
development. And for RUHTCC beam with reinforcement ratio of 2.28% failing in flexure-shear, a large
deformation comparable to that of RC beam with 0.67% reinforcement ratio was observed.
Ó 2012 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

1. Introduction cementitious matrix be improved effectively. Recently, a group of

In practice, RC members always work with cracks during its
work-life. For ensuring the durability of concrete structure in some
specific environments, the maximum allowable crack width is of-
ten limited to prevent the corrosive medium from entering the
structure freely [1]. In addition, the ductility of RC member with
large reinforcement ratio is not high enough to ensure structure
safety under accidental load, i.e., earthquake and impulsive action.
For other important members requiring a large shear resistance,
such as the beam-column joint, shear wall, beam ends and column
base, large web reinforcement ratio is always applied to enhance
the shear capacity and compensate the brittle property of concrete
[2]. Consequently, to improve the ductility in complex structures
or structural key positions as well as to enhance the durability in
harsh environments, some new materials with excellent nonlinear
deformation and crack control abilities are desired for the practical
application instead of brittle concrete in future.
For improving the flexural and shear performances of plain
concrete, one of main methods was the addition of various fibers
[3–7], which makes the native brittleness property of
⇑ Corresponding author at: Institute of Advanced Engineering Structures and
Materials, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China. Tel.: +86 571 88208676.
E-mail address: slxu@zju.edu.cn (S. Xu).
high performance fiber reinforced cementitious composite (HPF-
RCC) characterized by deflection-hardening behavior even tensile
strain-hardening behavior appeared continually [8], such as SIF-
CON (slurry infiltrated fiber concrete), SIMCON (slurry infiltrated
mat concrete), ECC (engineered cementitious composites), and
UHTCC (ultra high toughness cementitious composite) [9]. Similar
to ECC [10], UHTCC presents excellent tensile strain capacity up to
3%, fine crack dispersion capability with average crack width less
than 0.1 mm and tight crack spacing of 1–2 mm, and outstanding
deformation capacity [9,11].
The flexural experiment under two symmetrical concentrated
load have been conducted by Xu and Zhang [12]. Their results
showed that compared with the RC beam, RUHTCC beam, as well
as RC/UHTCC member in which a layer of UHTCC with varied depths
replaced concrete as a cover of longitudinal steel bar, not only im-
proved load capacity, deformation and ductility capability, but
effectively controlled the crack opening by forming a large number
of fine cracks in pure-bending zone. Li and Wang [13] conducted the
comparison studies on flexural and shear behaviors between glass
fiber-reinforced polymer (GFRP) reinforced ECC (GRE) beams and
GRC beams. The experimental results revealed that the crack
opening can be effectively suppressed by use of ECC even if GFRP
has a lower elastic modulus than steel bar. For the members with
the same reinforcement ratio and similar compressive strength of

0141-0296/$ - see front matter Ó 2012 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

doi:10.1016/j.engstruct.2012.01.011
 S. Xu et al. / Engineering Structures 39 (2012) 176–186 177

matrix, shear load capacity of GRE beam with no stirrups was close
to that of GRC beam with web reinforcement ratio of 0.77%. Li et al.
[14] carried out the Ohno shear beam to experimentally compare
the shear performances between PC (plain concrete), RC, SFRC (steel
fiber reinforced concrete), SPECC (spectra fiber ECC) and DRECC
(dramix fiber ECC). Among these materials investigated by them,
SPECC possessed tensile strain of 5.6% and ultimate strength of
4.7 MPa, which are similar to that of UHTCC mentioned above.
The experimental results indicated that the SPECC beam had a shear
strength of 5.09 MPa, about twice that of PC and even comparable
to that of RC beam with web stirrups ratio of 0.75%. Moreover,
the SPECC beam demonstrated a diagonal multiple-cracking pat-
tern and hence had the much larger shear strain than other beams.
Shimizu et al. [15] also reported that the shear behavior of PVA-ECC
beam was far superior to plain RC beam, presenting a prominent
crack control ability and about 1.6 times load-carrying capacity.
Moreover, due to the outstanding mechanical properties and Fig. 1. Details of beams tested.
durability, UHTCC can be used to repair the aged RC members.
The experimental studies [16–18] demonstrated the improved load
the depth and effective depth of cross section. For steel bar, Es
bearing capacity and ductility as well as fine cracking pattern were
and fy were respectively considered to have a value of 200 GPa
obtained through casting a layer of UHTCC in tension zone, but the
and 380 MPa referring to previous experiments. In the initial design
interface failure between UHTCC and old material can result in the
of this test, ecp, rtc and cubic compressive strength fcu of UHTCC
shear failure of repaired member [17].
were first assumed to be about 0.005, 4.0 MPa and 44 MPa [12],
In previous experimental studies, it was noticed that the flex-
respectively, according to the test data previously reported. Based
ural behavior of RUHTCC beam were investigated through sym-
on the compression experimental data with respect to UHTCC con-
metrically four point loading pattern. With respect to structural
ducted by Xu and Cai [19], it is found that the cube compressive
performance of RUHTCC beam under other loading pattern such
strength (fcu) was almost comparable to the prism compressive
as one concentrated point load at the center of beam, there were
strength (fc), which differs from the transformation relationship of
little discussions up to date. Furthermore, the shear member in
fc = 0.79fcu for concrete [20]. That means that the cube compressive
practical engineering structures appears generally in a type of
strength fcu of UHTCC can be taken as an estimate of its prism com-
beam or column member, which is different from the Ohno shear
pressive strength fc. Thus, substituting these values into the Eqs. (1)
beam presented in reference [14,15]. With these considerations,
and (2), the critical reinforcement ratio qb of roughly 4.84% was pre-
in the current paper, the experiment study on RUHTCC beams
dicted for RUHTCC beam designed in current test.
without web reinforcement is performed under a concentrated
Based on limit reinforcement ratio of 4.84%, the longitudinal
load at the center of beam to comprehensively understand their
reinforcement ratio was designed as 0.67%, 1.00%, 1.73%, 2.28%,
bending and shear responses. In this test, the failure mode from
and 3.25%. The specimens were respectively labeled as Af, Ac, Bf,
flexural failure to flexure-shear failure to shear failure was
Bc, Cf, Cc, Df, Dc, Ef, and Ec, in which A–E corresponded to five
achieved for RUHTCC beams through varying longitudinal rein-
different reinforcement ratios, f stood for RUHTCC series and c
forcement ratio.
denoted RC control series. RC beams had a target concrete com-
pressive strength of about 40 MPa comparable to that of UHTCC.
2. Experimental program Herein, it ought to be pointed out that in the design of test, in order
to achieve the 1% reinforcement ratio using given type of steel bar,
2.1. Test specimens the dimension of cross section for series B was further adjusted as
100 mm  180 mm. Fig. 1 illustrates the configuration of tested
A total of 10 beams, five different series, were tested. In each beam geometry and reinforcement details. The details of test spec-
series, two beams were fabricated, where one was RUHTCC beam imens are summarized in Table 1, including specimen dimension
and the other was RC counterpart specimen. All beams were (l  b  h), cover thickness (c), the shear span-to-effective depth
preliminary designed to have the same size of cross section ratio (a/d), reinforcement ratio (q), area of longitudinal steel bar
120  180 mm as well as cover thickness of 25 mm. Web reinforce- (As), and critical reinforcement ratio (qb).
ment was not provided for all specimens.
The main variable between different series was the longitudinal
reinforcement ratio, the up bound of which was slightly lower than
critical reinforcement value (qb) that is estimated according to Eqs. 2.2. Material properties and specimen fabrication
(1) and (2) suggested by Xu and Zhang [12] based on sectional
analysis of beam, The mix proportion of concrete used in this test was cement:-
water:sand:coarse aggregate = 1:0.535:1.483:2.755. For UHTCC
f 4 rtc rtc h material, the main compositions consisted of cement, water, fine
qb ¼ 0:85nb c þ nb  ð1Þ
fy 3 fy fy d sand, fly ash, mineral addition, and PVA fiber. Type I Portland
cement was used. The fraction of fiber was 2% in volume. The basic
0:75 parameters of PVA fiber are 40 lm in diameter, 12 mm in length.
nb ¼ f
ð2Þ
1 þ ecpyEs This type of fiber has an elastic modulus of 40 GPa and a tensile
strength of 1600 MPa. In the process of mixing, dry composites
where fc, rtc, and ecp are the axial compressive strength, the tensile were first mixed for about 2 min and then the water was added
cracking strength and the ultimate compression strain of UHTCC; nb slowly while keeping mixing until the mixture was blended into
is relative limited compression zone depth; fy and Es are the tensile a paste. Subsequently, the superplasticizer was added to obtain
yielding strength and elastic modulus of the steel bar; h and d are good workability in the fresh composite. Finally, fiber was added
178 S. Xu et al. / Engineering Structures 39 (2012) 176–186

Table 1
Details of tested specimens.

Series l  b  h (mm) c (mm) a/d q (%) As (mm2) qb (%) fy (MPa) fu (MPa) fcu (MPa) fr (MPa) rfc (MPa)
Af 1150  120  180 25 3.02 0.67 113.04 5.57 £12:347 £12:497 46.81 – 4.05
Ac 1150  120  180 25 3.02 0.67 113.04 5.16 43.25 4.74 –
Bf 1150  100  180 25 3.04 1.00 153.86 5.03 £14:384 £14:532 46.81 – 4.05
Bc 1150  100  180 25 3.04 1.00 153.86 4.50 43.25 4.74 –
Cf 1150  120  180 25 3.04 1.73 307.72 4.96 46.22 – 3.75
Cc 1150  120  180 25 3.04 1.73 307.72 4.71 45.25 5.37 –
Df 1150  120  180 25 3.06 2.28 200.96 4.99 £16:381 £16:535 46.22 – 3.75
Dc 1150  120  180 25 3.06 2.28 200.96 5.06 48.08 5.50 –
Ef 1150  120  180 25 3.08 3.25 568.34 4.87 £18:392 £18:554 46.39 – 3.95
Ec 1150  120  180 25 3.08 3.25 568.34 4.66 £20:336 £20:520 48.08 5.50 –

qb for RUHTCC beam is calculated by substituting the material parameters practically measured in the test into Eq. (1); qb for RC beams is calculated according to the equation
given in reference [2]; fcu of concrete is obtained from the 100 mm cube compressive strength multiplying a coefficient of 0.95.

Fig. 3. The test apparatus and loading set-up.

Fig. 2. The measured uniaxial tensile stress–strain curves of UHTCC.

by hand while mixing. The overall mixing was stopped when the
uniform fiber dispersion was observed.
The beams were cast in plywood molds. Before initial setting of
concrete and UHTCC, the surface polish finishing was performed.
Then the specimens were covered by plastic thin membrane to
avoid the loss of water. After the formwork was removed, the
beams were cured under humid conditions.
While casting each batch of beam, three 100 mm cubes and three
70.7 mm cubes were simultaneously cast to separately evaluate the
compressive strength (fcu) of concrete and UHTCC. Three thin plates
with dimension of 350  50  15 mm were made to test the tension
property of UHTCC. One set of 400  100  100 mm beams of con-
crete was cast to obtain modulus of rupture (fr), and the other set
of UHTCC beams was used to measure its flexural cracking strength
(rfc). The uniaxial tensile stress–strain curves of UHTCC obtained
from direct tension tests are shown in Fig. 2.
The deformed steel bars were used, with a diameter of £12,
£14, £16, £18, and £20. The yielding strength (fy) and ultimate
tensile strength (fu) were obtained by tension test. The yielding
strain of these types of steel bar, which was measured experimen-
tally by electric resistance strain gauge stuck on their surface, was
shown to be about 2000–2400 lm/m. For the sake of the conserva-
tive consideration, the yielding strain ey was uniformly taken as
2150 lm/m in the below calculation of this paper. The elastic mod-
ulus Es of steel bar was correspondingly calculated as fy/ey based on
the linear behavior of reinforcement before yielding. All of the
material properties measured are summarized in Table 1.
2.3. Test setup and instrumentation
A concentrated load was applied at the center of the beams
using an electro-hydraulic servo-controlled testing machine with
the maximum capacity of 10,000 kN. A load cell with the allowable
capacity of 300 kN was connected to loading machine to minimize
the measurement error. Fig. 3 shows the test apparatus and loading
set-up. The beams were simply supported at a clear span of
900 mm, which corresponded to a shear span-to-effective depth
ratio (a/d) of 3.02–3.08.
The present test was controlled manually by displacement. For
beams with yielding of reinforcement, the displacement rate was
taken as 0.12–0.15 mm/min before yielding, and then a higher rate
of 0.30–0.40 mm/min was employed after yielding. For beams with-
out yielding of reinforcement, the same rate as 0.12–0.15 mm/min
was also adopted during whole loading. At the ascending stage of
load, when the load of the integer times of 3–5 kN was reached, it
was retained for about 3–5 min to observe crack development.
The cracking pattern was then drawn along the trajectory of crack
growth, and crack width was measured using crack observation
apparatus with a precision of 0.02 mm.
Four linear variable differential transformers (LVDTs) which
were fixed on both sides of mid-span and two supports were used
to measure the deformation of beam. The net deflection at mid-
span location of beam was eventually determined as the difference
between the mid-span displacement and the settlement at
supports. To record the strain in longitudinal reinforced steel, an
electric resistance strain gauge was stuck on the surface at mid-
span of each steel bar. All readings were continuously collected
by IMC data-acquisition systems until the failure of beam.
3. Experimental results and discussion
3.1. General behavior of beams
Fig. 4 shows the load–deflection curves of RUHTCC and RC
beams with different reinforcement ratios, in which the width of
series B was scaled up from 100 mm to 120 mm only for carrying
out a convenient comparison between them. It is well known from
beam theory that in general, when the depth of beam keeps the
same, the increase in width of beam would yield a proportionally
increased load-carrying capacity but almost consistent flexural
 S. Xu et al. / Engineering Structures 39 (2012) 176–186
(a) (b)
(d) (e)
Fig. 4. Load–deflection curves of beams with different reinforcement ratios: (a) series A; (b) series B; (c) series C; (d) series D; (e) series E; (f) comparison between RUHTCC
series.
deformation. Based on this, the tested load for series B was corre-
spondingly scaled up to 1.2 times while keeping the deflection un-
changed. From this figure, for the series A and B of RC control
specimens, the apparent yielding deformation stage was pre-
sented, whereas the brittle shear failure took place for series C,
D, and E of RC control specimens. By contrast, only Ef beam with
the reinforcement ratio of 3.25% suffered a typical shear failure
while the remaining series of RUHTCC beams all showed apparent
deflection hardening stage after yielding. Fig. 4f shows a compari-
son between RUHTCC beams with different reinforcement ratios. It
can be seen that the RUHTCC beam with heavy reinforcements had
a higher load-carrying ability but a lower ultimate deflection.
Three failure modes were presented according to Fig. 4 and the
experimental observation. The first was typical flexural failure,
characterized by the crushing of matrix material in compression
zone after the reinforcement yields, i.e., beams Ac, Af, Bf, and Cf.
The second was typical shear failure with inclined shear principal
crack but without yielding of reinforcement, i.e., beams Cc, Dc, Ec
and Ef. The last was flexure-shear failure, i.e., beams Bc and Df, pre-
senting that the finial failure occurred by the propagation of prin-
cipal diagonal crack although the marked yielding plateau and the
apparent propagation of flexural cracks after yielding were experi-
enced. Therefore, the evolution process from typical flexural failure
to flexural-shear failure to shear failure was presented for both RC
beams and RUHTCC beams.
3.2. Flexural behaviors of RUHTCC beams
3.2.1. Flexural cracking load
Flexural cracking load was both experimentally and theoreti-
cally determined in this analysis. For the experimental flexural
cracking load Pfcr,exp, it was defined as the level of load at which
the first bending crack was found by crack observation apparatus.
For the theoretical flexural cracking load Pfcr,cal, it was predicted
using the following expression,
4 4 fr Ig
Pfcr;cal ¼ M cr ¼ 
l l yt
179
(c)
(f)
where l is the length of span; Ig is the moment of inertia of the gross
section; Mcr is cracking moment and can be calculated according to
ACI code [21]; and yt is the distance from the extreme tension fiber
to the neutral axis. For RUHTCC beams, fr is replaced by the flexural
cracking strength rfc. For calculating the cracking moment more
accurately, Ig in Eq. (3) is replaced with moment of inertia of un-
cracked transformed section (Iut). In calculation of Iut, the elastic mod-
ulus of UHTCC (Eu) was taken as 4.012(fcu)0.40 based on the studies on
the tension and compression properties of UHTCC [19,22].
Comparison between the experimental values and the com-
puted ones, as summarized in Table 2, indicated that the measured
values were larger than the calculated ones for RUHTCC beams
whereas the contrary tendency was noticed for RC beams. The pos-
sible reason was that the micro-cracks that appeared in RUHTCC
beams at the early loading stage were not wide enough to be found
by crack observing apparatus.
3.2.2. Maximum deflection at service load
Deflection is considered as a main control parameter at normal
service stage [2]. The short-term deflection have been extensively
investigated with respect to RC beam [23,24], reinforced FRC beam
[25], and concrete beam reinforced by FRP rebar [26], etc. In these
studies, many theoretical methods for estimating the short-term
deflection at service load were proposed, in which the tension stiff-
ness effect of concrete between cracks was taken into account.
In general, the structures always work under the normal service
condition at which the maximum load level is often limited to
about 50–70% ultimate load. According to this limitation, the max-
imum load level under service condition was considered to be
equal to the tested ultimate load Pu divided by a factor of 1.7 in
the reference [27]. Thus, the experimental maximum mid-span
deflection dser,exp corresponding to this maximum load level at ser-
vice stage can be determined for RUHTCC beams failing in flexure
and flexure-shear, as listed in Table 3.
Further, the maximum allowable deflection at service stage can
be analytically calculated based on elastic bending deformation
ð3Þ
equation as follows:
180 S. Xu et al. / Engineering Structures 39 (2012) 176–186

Table 2
Summary of experimental results.

Series Pfcr,cal Pfcr,exp Pscr Yielding load Py Yielding deflection dy Ultimate load Pu Ultimate deflection du Ductility Failure
(kN) (kN) (kN) (kN) (mm) (kN) (mm) index mode
Af 12.56 14.42 – 43.53 2.27 44.10 22.68 9.99 Flexure
Ac 14.36 13.51 – 33.18 1.43 39.10 11.28 7.89 Flexure
Bf 13.24 16.65 – 62.40 2.65 69.73 19.12 7.22 Flexure
Bc 15.61 14.43 45.62 43.42 1.75 49.97 8.21 4.19 Flexure-
shear
Cf 13.21 16.18 51.50 85.42 3.00 95.40 18.66 6.22 Flexure
Cc 17.56 16.21 51.54 – – 51.54 1.53 – Shear
Df 13.78 18.55 55.50 110.12 4.37 116.77 10.25 2.35 Flexure-
shear
Dc 18.55 17.27 56.14 – – 66.84 3.89 – Shear
Ef 15.37 18.62 53.00 – – 133.20 6.49 – Shear
Ec 19.51 18.74 61.40 – – 69.58 3.36 – Shear

Table 3
Maximum deflection at service load for RUHTCC beams failing in flexure and flexure-shear.

Ie1 (mm4) Ie2 (mm4) dser,exp (mm) dser,1 (mm) dser,1/dser,exp dser;1 ðmmÞ dser;1 =dser;exp dser,2 (mm) dser,2/dser,exp

Af 1.956E+07 1.956E+07 1.175 1.181 1.005 1.479 1.259 1.181 1.005

Bf 2.012E+07 2.012E+07 1.405 1.380 0.982 1.463 1.041 1.380 0.982
Cf 3.233E+07 2.774E+07 1.622 1.420 0.875 1.440 0.888 1.655 1.020
Df 3.704E+07 2.846E+07 1.883 1.515 0.805 1.526 0.810 1.972 1.047
Mean 0.917 1.000 1.014
C.V. 0.102 0.198 0.027

2
Ma l in which, Ec is the elastic modulus of concrete; ec(x) is compressive
dser;cal ¼ ð4Þ strain distribution along the beam depth; etop is the compressive
12EIe
strain at extreme compression fiber. Based on the plane section
in which Ma is the applied maximum (mid-span) moment at the assumption, the following relationship can be obtained,
time when the deflection is calculated; E is the elastic modulus of
matrix material (concrete or UHTCC); Ie is the effective moment etop c
¼ ð10Þ
of inertia specified in ACI code and is written as es d  c
 3  3  3 # "
M cr M cr M cr Substituting Eq. (10) into Eq. (9) and removing the same factor,
Ie ¼ Icr þ ðIg  Icr Þ ¼ Ig þ 1  Icr ð5Þ Eq. (9) can then be transformed as Eq. (7). That is, the neutral axis
Ma Ma Ma
depth determined using Eq. (7) which is derived based on the equi-
in which Ig is the moment of inertia of gross section as mentioned librium of moment of area between compression zone and tension
above; Icr is the moment of inertia of fully cracked section. Herein, zone is actually equivalent to that determined using Eq. (9) which
Ig is replaced with the uncracked transformed moment of inertia is obtained based on the internal force equilibrium together with
(Iut) to consider the influence of reinforcing bar. For RC beams, the the linear compressive stress distribution along the beam depth.
traditional theoretical definition of Icr can be expressed as [23] In the case of RUHTCC beam, UHTCC in tension region can still
3 carry the tensile stress before the formation of the local main crack.
bc
Icr ¼ þ ns As ðd  cÞ2 ð6Þ Therefore, the tension contribution of UHTCC cannot be ignored.
3 According to previous analysis with respect to RC beam, the
2 neutral axial depth of RUHTCC beam can also be derived through
bc the equilibrium of either moment of area or internal force at cross
þ ns As ðc  dÞ ¼ 0 ð7Þ
2 section. In the following analysis, the simplified bilinear tension
in which c is the neutral axis depth at mid-span section that corre- constitutive relationship, as shown in Fig. 5a, is suggested for
sponds to the distance from the extreme compression fiber to the UHTCC to model its tensile behavior. The compressive stress of
neutral axis; ns is the ratio of elastic modulus of reinforcement to UHTCC in the compression zone is still considered to vary in a
that of concrete. When neglecting the tension contribution of con- linear manner along beam depth, which is similar to that used
crete, c can be obtained by Eq. (8) according to the internal force in internal force analysis for RC beam previously. Besides, the
equilibrium at the cross section constitutive relationship of steel bar is simplified as classical elas-
Z c tic–plastic model, as shown in Fig. 5c. Based on the equilibrium of
rc ðxÞbdh ¼ es Es As ð8Þ moment of area, the modified equation for determining the neutral
0 axial depth of RUHTCC beam is derived as
in which, Es is the elastic modulus of steel bar; rc(x) is the compres-
2 2
sive stress distribution along the beam depth; es is the strain of rein- bc bt n1 b
¼ ns As ðd  cÞ þ þ ðh  c  tÞðh  c þ tÞ ð11Þ
forcing bar. If assuming that there is a linear distribution of rc(x) at 2 2 2
full cracked section, Eq. (8) can be further rewritten as
Z c
in which, n1 is the ratio of E1u to Eu, E1u is the slope corresponding to
bcEc etop the tension hardening stage of UHTCC in Fig. 5a; t is the distance
Ec ec ðxÞbdh ¼ ¼ es Es As ð9Þ
0 2 from the neutral axis to end point of elastic stress stage in tension
 S. Xu et al. / Engineering Structures 39 (2012) 176–186 181

(a) 5 (b) (c)

50
fy
4
40
( cu, fc)

stress /MPa
(4.2%, 4.33)

stress /MPa
3
30
2 (3/Eu, 3) 20 ( cu/3, 2fc/3)
1 10
0 0
0 1 2 3 4 5 0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6
strain /% strain /% y u

Fig. 5. Constitutive relationship of UHTCC and steel bar: (a) UHTCC in tension; (b) UHTCC in compression; (c) steel bar in tension.

region, and it can be expressed by Eq. (12) based on the plane sec- According to these theoretical analyses, corresponding to any
tion assumption given tensile strain of steel bar, the values of their neutral axis
t etc depth c and the moment of inertia I can be worked out through
¼ ð12Þ Eqs. (13) and (14). In calculation, typical RUHTCC beam failing in
d  c es
flexure are chosen, i.e., beam Af with smaller reinforcement ratio
in which, etc is the tensile cracking strain computed by rtc/Eu, where of 0.67% and beam Cf with larger reinforcement ratio of 1.73%.
rtc is cracking tensile stress and has a value of 3 MPa, as shown in Fig. 6 shows that the variations of neutral axis depth c and moment
Fig. 5a. But, based on the internal force equilibrium at cross section, of inertia I with the increase in tensile strain of steel bar for the
the equations for obtaining the neutral axial depth can be further beams Af and Cf. For observing the influence of tensile contribution
expressed as of UHTCC on c and I of RUHTCC beam, Fig. 6 also displays the re-
2 2 sults of c and I calculated by Eqs. (6), (7), and (11). It is clearly no-
bc bt n1 b ticed from Fig. 6a that the value of c obtained based on Eq. (13) is
¼ ns As ðd  cÞ þ þ btðh  c  tÞ þ ðh  c  tÞ2 ð13Þ
2 2 2 far larger than that calculated by Eq. (7), whereas Eq. (11) almost
Compared Eq. (11) with Eq. (13), it is revealed that the last item gives the identical value of c compared to Eq. (7) when the tensile
in Eq. (11) is not equivalent to the last two items in Eq. (13). In strain is above 1250 lm/m. This phenomenon demonstrates that
other words, the neutral axis depth obtained by Eq. (11) is different the tensile bearing capacity of UHTCC after cracking greatly affects
from that calculated by Eq. (13). It is well-known that the physical the neutral axis depth of cross section, and Eq. (11) derived from
significance of neutral axis location means the intersected line the equilibrium of moment of area cannot reflects such influence
between cross section and neutral layer in which no strain is actually. From Fig. 6b, it is found that moment of inertia obtained
presented. This implies that the resultant force above and below based on equilibrium of moment of area is almost the same each
the neutral axis of the cross section is equal to internal force car- other after the tensile strain of steel bar is beyond 1000 lm/m.
ried at this section. Therefore, Eq. (13) obtained based on internal However, for RUHTCC beam with smaller reinforcements, i.e.,
force equilibrium is rational in physical meaning and can be used beam Af, there is apparent difference between moment of inertia
to solve the neutral axis depth of RUHTCC beam. And then the I attained according to equilibrium of internal force and that at-
moment of inertia (I) of RUHTCC beam for the case of linear com- tained according to equilibrium of area moment.
pressive stress distribution along the depth can be obtained as Fig. 6b reveals that the moment of inertia I is always well close
3 3
to each other regardless of whether the contribution of UHTCC in
bc bt tension region to flexural stiffness of beam is taken into consider-
I¼ þ ns As ðd  cÞ2 þ
3 3 ation or not when es is larger than 750 lm/m. That implies that the
" #
ðh  c þ tÞ2 ðh  c  tÞ3 contribution of UHTCC in tension zone to flexural stiffness of beam
þ n1 b ðh  c  tÞ þ ð14Þ can be neglected and the calculation of moment of inertia can be
4 12
further simplified without big loss of accuracy.
If the influence of UHTCC in tension region on the moment of Moreover, it is also found that both c and I vary little when ten-
inertia of cracked section is small enough to be neglected, then sile strain of steel bar is beyond 2000 lm/m, presenting that based
Eq. (14) can be simplified as Eq. (6), in which c varies with the on either Eqs. (13) and (14) or Eqs. (13) and (6), the maximum
change of strain of steel bar. ratios of c and I at strain of 2400 lm/m to those at 2000 lm/m

(a) (b)

Fig. 6. Change of c and I with the increase in tensile strain of reinforcement: (a) c; (b) I.
182 S. Xu et al. / Engineering Structures 39 (2012) 176–186
are about 1.033 and 1.023, respectively. It can be therefore said
that the neutral axis depth and moment of inertia almost remain
constant near the yielding stain of reinforcing bar, and yielding
state can be considered as fully cracked state for RUHTCC beam,
as indicated by Ashour [23] for RC beam.
From these points, the moment of inertia of fully cracked sec-
tion (Icr) for RUHTCC beams can be taken as moment of inertia at
yielding of beam without consideration of contribution of UHTCC
in tension zone. Thus, Icr for RUHTCC beam is further simplified as
3 8 2
bcy
Icr ¼ þ ns As ðd  cy Þ2 ð15Þ
3 >
in which, cy is the neutral axis depth computed by Eq. (13) when the
strain of steel bar reaches its yielding strain, i.e., es = ey.
With the calculated Icr using Eq. (15) together with Eq. (13), the
deflection of RUHTCC beams at service load can be further predicted
through Eq. (4) after obtaining the effective moment of inertia Ie
given by Eq. (5). The calculated maximum mid-span deflection
(dser,1) at service load is listed in Table 3. For RUHTCC beams with
failure mode of flexure or flexure-shear, the mean and C.V. of their
dser,1/dser,exp were 0.907 and 10.2%, respectively, which indicated
these equations based on linear compression behavior underesti-
mated deflection of beam. Furthermore, the degree of underestima-
tion of deflection becomes more and more evident as the
reinforcement ratio increased. These observations can be explained
from the following two aspects. For the cracked beam, the decrease
in stiffness (EI) is associated with the reduction of both the moment
of inertia and the elastic modulus. However, the change with respect
to elastic modulus of UHTCC, due to its nonlinear behavior of com-
pressive stress–strain curve, is not considered in the calculation of
deflection according to Eq. (4). On the other hand, for the beam sub-
jected to one point loading, the shear deformation also contributes
to mid-span deflection to some extent and this contribution be-
comes more apparent with the increase in shear force.
Further, a full cracked beam is assumed in the calculation of the
deflection of RUHTCC beams, which means the effective moment of
inertia of a cracked beam Ie is equal to the moment of inertia of
fully cracked beam Icr (Ie = Icr) [28]. The calculated deflection dser;1
according to this assumption is listed in Table 3. As shown in Table
3, the mean of dser;1 =dser;exp is 1.0, whereas the dispersion degree
becomes more apparent with C.V. up to 20%. Besides, it is found
that the computed deflection dser;1 of beam Af with reinforcement
ratio of 0.67% was obviously larger than dser,1, while there is slight
difference between these two calculated deflections for the
remaining beams. The possible reason is that the ratio of the crack-
ing moment to the mid-span moment at maximum service load
(Mcr/Ma) for beam Af is far larger than that of other beams with
larger reinforcement ratio, and thus the second term containing
(Ig–Icr) in Eq. (5) has a larger effect on Ie for beam Af with lower
reinforcement ratio than for other beams. Accordingly, such
assumption greatly weakens the stiffness of beam with low rein-
forcement ratio but has little influence on the stiffness of beams
with high reinforcement ratio.
In fact, the elastic modulus of UHTCC in compression region
gradually reduced with the increase in compressive strain. In par-
ticular, such drop is more apparent when the compressive strain is
higher than ecu/3 [29]. At yielding state, the compressive strain at
extreme compression fiber for RUHTCC beams with high reinforce-
ment ratio may be higher than ecu/3, which may result in an elastic
modulus lower than the initial value. Therefore, the fully cracked
moment of inertia Icr and the resulting effective moment of inertia
Ie are both greatly overestimated.
It is necessary to introduce the rational compressive constitu-
tive relationship to reflect the reduction of elastic modulus of
UHTCC in compression region. For the convenience in the analysis
of internal force equilibrium, the simplified bilinear model for
compressive stress–strain behavior of ECC proposed by Maalej
and Li [29], as shown in Fig. 5b, is adopted. In this model, the strain
(ecc) and the stress (rcc) at the turning point are assumed as ecu/3
and 2fc/3, respectively. The ultimate compressive strain ecu is taken
as 0.5% [12]. Therefore, based on the bilinear tensile and compres-
sive constitutive relationships of UHTCC, the moment of inertia of
fully cracked section can be obtained by following group of
equations,
ðc uÞ2 2
>
>
>
>
bu
2
þ buðcy  uÞ þ n2 b y 2 ¼ ns As ðd  cy Þ þ bt2 þ btðh  cy  tÞ þ n21 b ðh  cy  tÞ2
> h i
< I ¼ bu3 þ n b ðc  uÞ ðcy þuÞ2 þ ðcy uÞ3 þ n A ðd  c Þ2
cr 3 2 y 4 12 s s y
>
> etc t
>
>
> ey ¼ dcy
>
: ecc ¼ u
ey dcy
ð16Þ
in which, u is the distance from the neutral axis to the turning point
of compressive stress; n2 is the ratio of E2u/Eu, E2u is the slope cor-
responding to the stage of the second straight line in simplified
bilinear compression model; ecc is the compressive strain at the
turning point in simplified bilinear stress–strain model, as shown
in Fig. 5b.
The calculated effective moment of inertia (Ie2) and deflection
(dser,2) at maximum service load are summarized in Table 3. It is
noticed that the computed deflection dser,2 agrees well with the
experimental value and the mean and C.V. of dser,2/dser,exp are
merely 1.014 and 2.27%, respectively. Compared with Ie1 obtained
based on the linear elastic compression behavior, as shown in
Table 3, Ie2 of beams Cf and Df reduced apparently due to taking
into account the decrease in compressive elastic modulus at the
second linear stage. Correspondingly, the calculated deflection
dser,2 of beams Cf and Df is well close to the tested value. Besides,
the calculated deflection dser,2 of beams Af and Bf is still the same
as dser,1 because the compressive stress is at the first linear stage.
Further, the deflection at load lower than the yielding load is
also calculated to examine the whole deflection process before
the yielding of beam. The calculated curve for RUHTCC beams Af,
Bf, and Cf that failed in flexure are shown in Fig. 7. It is shown that
the computed deflection curves intersect with the experimental
deflection curves and the load corresponding to this intersection
point is discovered to be near the maximum service load. The com-
puted deflection is firstly larger than the tested value before the
intersection point, whereas that is less than the tested value after
this point with the maximum error of about 15% at yielding load.
Therefore, the theoretical equations for calculating Icr of RUHTCC
beam, which are proposed based on internal force equilibrium to-
gether with assumed bilinear tensile and compressive constitutive
models, can predict the deflection before yielding of RUHTCC beam
Fig. 7. Comparison between calculated deflection and experimental value before
yielding.
 S. Xu et al. / Engineering Structures 39 (2012) 176–186
with good accuracy, particularly to the deflection at maximum ser-
vice load.
3.2.3. Flexural behavior after yielding
Comparing the results of RUHTCC beams with those of RC con-
trol beams shown in Table 2, it is seen that beams Af and Bf respec-
tively presented 31.2% and 41.8% higher yielding load than the
corresponding control beams Ac and Bc and, their corresponding
yielding deflections increased by 43.2% and 51.4%, respectively.
In addition, the 13% and 40% improvement of beams Af and Bf over
beams Ac and Bc were shown for the ultimate loads and the corre-
sponding ultimate deflection also had about one time increase.
Such improvements in both load carrying capacity and deforma-
tion capacity are associated with advantageous material properties
of UHTCC such as tensile strain-hardening behavior, large deforma-
tion ability, high compression toughness capacity, and outstanding
deformation compatibility with reinforcement. From these experi-
mental results, it can be concluded that the ductile UHTCC can re-
place a small amount of steel bar to improve ductility of structural
members while remaining similar ultimate load capacity.
It can be also observed from Table 2 that, the RUHTCC beam
with heavy reinforcement ratio had higher yielding load, yielding
deflection and ultimate load but lower ultimate deflection and
ductility. With respect to displacement ductility index [27] that
is the ratio of deflection at ultimate state (du) to that at yielding
state (dy), RUHTCC beams failing in flexure showed a value ranging
from 6.22 to 9.99 which is far larger than the target value of 3–5
required in seismic design [30]. However, for RUHTCC beam Df that
showed flexure-shear failure mode, although apparent deflection
hardening stage was presented, its displacement ductility index
was only 2.35, which is lower than 3. From this point, it is advised
that in practical use some web reinforcements ought to be installed
to effectively restrain the shear deformation such that the
improved ultimate deformation capacity is obtained to ensure
the ductility requirement in seismic design.
For the RUHTCC beam that used low reinforcement ratio, like
beams Af and Bf, the load was seen to slightly go up after yielding
as deflection was further imposed (Fig. 4a and b). When the main
flexural crack formed and went through the whole bottom surface
of beam, a slight drop in load occurred. Subsequently, as the major
crack slowly extended upwards toward the compression region of
beam, the load either again went up slightly or kept a constant up
to the crushing in compression zone. However, for other RUHTCC
beams with larger reinforcement ratio, like beams Cf and Df, no
drop in load was observed even when main flexural cracking
formed after yielding. The possible reason is that for RUHTCC
beams containing a great amount of reinforcement, the moment
at a cross section is dominated by longitudinal steel bar in tension
region and UHTCC in compression region, and thus during propa-
gation of main bending crack, the gradual loss of tension capacity
of UHTCC has little influence on load bearing capacity.
3.2.4. Crack development in flexure
The flexural crack development during loading was similar for
different reinforcement ratio of RUHTCC beams that failed in flex-
ure, i.e., beams Af, Bf and Cf. For investigating the superior crack
control capacity of UHTCC to plain concrete, the cracking patterns
of RUHTCC beam Af and RC beam Ac that had the same reinforce-
ment ratio of 0.67% were carefully compared. Fig. 8 shows their
typical crack development at yielding, together with crack devel-
opment in beam Af when approaching the appearance of main
flexural crack. It is evident that the cracking behaviors between
them differed significantly. At the yielding state, only 3 visible
cracks developed around mid-span region in Ac beam, whereas
there were about 12 cracks in Af beam due to the multiple cracking
property of UHTCC. Because the number of cracks markedly
183
increased in Af beam, the maximum crack opening was merely
0.05 mm at the yielding state, which was far lower than 0.4 mm
in Ac beam. In practice, such fine cracks in RUHTCC beam can be
considered to be harmless and therefore can adequately meet the
width requirement in durability design even in harsh environment.
For tension strain-hardening FRCC such as ECC and UHTCC, the
past investigations [31–33] had shown that no stress concentration
occurred on steel bar while undergoing large nonlinear deforma-
tion because of the native strain-hardening behavior and large
strain capacity. In other words, UHTCC was able to compatibly de-
form with the reinforcement. Therefore, the number of fine cracks
was expected to increase to remain the continuous strain distribu-
tion between UHTCC and reinforcement. While for concrete matrix,
once the flexural cracking initiated, the concrete would no longer
undertake tensile stress and the stress previously carried by con-
crete would be transferred to reinforcing bar. This stress transfer
possibly resulted in a stress concentration on steel bar at the vicin-
ity of crack such that an obvious jump in strain eventually oc-
curred. As the load was further applied, such deformation
incompatibility between steel bar and concrete resulted in an in-
crease in the crack width.
With the increase in deformation after yielding, the crack
opened rapidly in RC beam, while a large number of fine cracks
with a tight spacing appeared around the mid-span zone in
RUHTCC beam, as shown in Fig. 8c. Moreover, it was observed in
RUHTCC beam that the crack width hardly increased during the
stage from yielding to the formation of main crack, with the max-
imum value of about 0.1 mm. After the beam reached yielding, the
strain in reinforcing bar at the maximum moment location drasti-
cally increased. Due to deformation compatibility between UHTCC
and steel bar, the same amount of strain increment occurred in
UHTCC. This resulted in the appearance of more fine cracks around
the mid-span region of RUHTCC beam. Consequently, the multiple-
cracking behavior under bending load is an intrinsic property of
UHTCC, which is independent of the loading manner.
After the main bending crack formed, it was observed for Ac
beam that, when the width of the first main crack grew up to about
5 mm, the second main crack rapidly opened while keeping the
constant width for first main crack. After the second major crack
extended into the compression region, horizontal layered cracks
appeared, resulting in the crushing in compression region. But
for RUHTCC beams Af, Bf and Cf, once the main bending crack
formed, it was just this crack that propagated locally and no new
main crack developed until the crushing in compression region
occurred. In this stage, the UHTCC didn’t deform compatibly with
steel bar, and the stress carried by UHTCC was partly transferred
to the reinforcement. And thus the yielding reinforcing bar with
rather low elastic modulus produced a large deformation locally,
which in turn led to the further development of only one main
crack.
3.3. Shear behaviors of RUHTCC beams
3.3.1. Shear cracking load
For RC slender beam (a/d P 2.5), it is generally accepted that
the shear cracking always appears suddenly above the longitudinal
steel bar and near the outmost flexural crack [34]. This crack ex-
tends upwards along the inclined flexural crack and at the same
time extends downwards along the longitudinal steel bar, which
is different from an ordinary flexural-shear diagonal crack in shear
span zone. But for RUHTCC member, the first inclined shear crack
occurred either in the middle part of shear-span region or near
the flexural cracks, and extended both upwards towards the load-
ing point and downwards towards support point.
The experimental shear cracking load Pscr is listed in Table 2. A
similar amount of shear cracking load was observed between RC
184 S. Xu et al. / Engineering Structures 39 (2012) 176–186
Fig. 8. Typical flexural crack pattern around the mid-span region: (a) Ac beam at yielding; (b) Af beam at yielding; (c) Af beam when approaching the formation of main
bending cracking.
beams and RUHTCC beams. And, it was noticed that the shear
cracking load increased slightly for RC beams with the increase
in reinforcement ratio while there were unappreciated variation
for RUHTCC beams. It was also observed that, for RC beams such
as beams Cc, Dc and Ec, the shear cracking load was close to the
ultimate load, but a large reserve of shear carrying capacity after
shear cracking was exhibited for RUHTCC beam (see beam Ef).
For slender RC beams without stirrup, the shear crack always
unsteadily developed shortly after it formed and rapidly pene-
trated into the compression region to result in a diagonal tension
failure. In contrast, for slender RUHTCC beams, the numerous fine
diagonal cracks progressively appeared after the shear cracking
and subsequently developed in a stable manner. No sudden open-
ing of diagonal cracks took place during the stable development.
3.3.2. Ultimate load capacity and deformation
Comparing the load–deflection curves shown in Fig. 4, beams
Dc and Ec both underwent three load peaks, whereas beam Cc
had only one load peak. This indicated that a more serious diagonal
tension failure took place in beam Cc. During testing, the principal
shear crack only at one side of beam Cc was observed to extend
into the compression region, while the shear cracks in beams Dc
and Ec were observed to develop alternately in right and left shear
span before the critical diagonal crack formed. Fig. 4f revealed that
RUHTCC beam Ef also produced a shear load–deflection curve with
only one load peak. But, the failure process in RUHTCC beam Ef dis-
tinguished in essence from that in beam Cc. In contrast to the sud-
den separation into two parts occurred in beam Cc, the stable crack
development mode was presented in beam Ef from the first shear
cracking to the ultimate failure. It can be attributed to the substan-
tial ductile deformation of UHTCC, the bridging action of fiber
across crack in matrix and its excellent deformation compatibility
with steel bar. During loading, the stress concentration on rein-
forcement near the crack was eliminated, which prevented the for-
mation and development of horizontal crack along the longitudinal
steel bar that was considered as the major reason for the unstable
development of shear crack in RC slender beam [34]. Moreover, the
bridge action of fiber restricted the opening of shear crack and re-
tarded the damage of the beam, and therefore greatly improved its
integrity.
Comparison between the shear load capacities of RC beams fail-
ing in shear indicated that the ultimate load increased slightly with
the increase in reinforcement ratio. Beam Ec had the maximum
ultimate shear load of 69.58 kN. However, it was found from Table
2 that, compared to beam Ec, beam Ef had improved ultimate load
up to 133.20 kN, about 1.91 times that of beam Ec, and the corre-
sponding deformation in Ef beam rose by 93%. These experimental
results revealed that UHTCC presented higher shear resistance
capacity than plain concrete with similar compressive strength,
which further confirmed the findings by Li et al. [14]. This implied
that for the tension strain-hardening material such as UHTCC, the
conventional relationship between the compressive strength and
shear strength suggested in ACI code was no longer suitable to pre-
dict its shear strength.
But for beams failing in flexure-shear, their ultimate load level
was closely related to the yielding of reinforcing bar and therefore
cannot reflect the actual shear capacity of matrix material. Besides,
a large mid-span deformation was usually undergone due to the
yielding of reinforcement. For example, as listed in Table 2, beams
Df and Bc separately experienced the mid-span deflection about
91% and 73% that of beam Ac that failed in flexure.
From these points, the application of UHTCC instead of concrete
in structural member is expected to be able to save a part of web
reinforcements required in some key locations of structures, i.e.,
 S. Xu et al. / Engineering Structures 39 (2012) 176–186
Fig. 9. The cracking pattern in beam Df at yielding.
(a)
(b)
Fig. 10. The typical shear crack development in RUHTCC (Ef) and RC (Ec) beam: (a)
RUHTCC beam; (b) RC beam.
beam-column joint, column base, and beam ends etc., and thus to
well ensure casting quality of matrix material.
3.3.3. Diagonal cracking pattern
Fig. 9 shows the crack pattern of Df beam at yielding state. It
was found that lots of diagonal cracks developed in shear-span
zone, with maximum crack width of roughly 0.13 mm. After yield-
ing, the speed of extension of inclined cracks slowed down,
whereas the number of flexural cracks continued to increase rap-
idly while keeping an almost unchanged width. With the further
increase in deformation, a local bulge appeared under the loading
point, resulting in a fast propagation of diagonal crack. At last, a
principal diagonal crack rapidly propagated in the middle of sec-
tion and then penetrated into the compression region.
Fig. 10 shows the typical shear crack development in RC beam
and RUHTCC beam. It was found that a single shear crack, consist-
ing of an inclined branch towards loading point and a horizontal
branch along the longitudinal steel bar, appeared in each shear
span for RC beam. However, multiple fine diagonal cracks that
almost distributed evenly in the overall shear span zone was
exhibited for RUHTCC beam. Fig. 11 shows the local diagonal crack
pattern observed in Ef beam when the ultimate load was reached.
A total of 25 cracks almost evenly distributed within the region of
about two grids (about 150 mm), which further showed excellent
crack dispersion capacity of UHTCC.
It was also observed that, unlike RC beam, critical diagonal
crack in RUHTCC beam developed almost along the line from the
support to the loading point. It seems for RUHTCC beam that the
splitting failure along inclined section connecting the support loca-
tion and the loading point location is main mechanism of shear
failure.
Fig. 12 presents the maximum diagonal crack width at each
load increment for Ec and Ef beams. It was noticed that the
maximum crack width in Ec beam was only 0.14 mm when
approaching first peak load, but it suddenly went up to about
0.4 mm when the shear cracking occurred. Then, the diagonal crack
opened rapidly up to 1.2 mm in width, accompanied by the up and
down fluctuation of load in this process. For Ef beam, it was found
from Fig. 12 that the crack opened in a stable manner. The crack
width first rapidly grew up to about 0.08 mm at the load of
68 kN and then slowly increased to 0.18 mm at the ultimate load.
At the load level which is the same as the ultimate load of beam Ec,
the crack width was only 0.08 mm.
185
Fig. 11. The local shear cracking pattern in Ef beam when reaching ultimate load.
Fig. 12. The evolution of diagonal crack width in beams Ec and Ef.
4. Conclusions
In this paper, the experimental research on flexural and shear
behaviors of steel reinforced ultrahigh toughness cementitious
composites (RUHTCC) beams was performed through the bending
test of beam with five different longitudinal steel ratios under
one concentrated load. With the increase in reinforcement ratio,
three failure modes were presented for both RC and RUHTCC
beams, including flexure, flexure-shear, and shear. Load carrying
capacity, deformation and cracking pattern were discussed and
compared between RUHTCC and RC beam. The following conclu-
sions can be drawn:
(1) The flexural performances of RUHTCC beam under one point
loading at mid-span were demonstrated to be comparable to
that under two symmetrical loading, presenting about
0.05 mm in crack width at yielding and the multiple cracking
pattern around mid-span region after yielding. This means
that the flexural behavior of RUHTCC beams is independent
of loading manner. Compared with the corresponding RC
control beam, the load-carrying capacity, cracking pattern,
deformation and ductility ability of RUHTCC beams were
markedly improved.
(2) Based on the internal force equilibrium, the theoretical
equations for calculating the moment of inertia of fully
cracked section (Icr) of RUHTCC beam is proposed, in which
the contribution of UHTCC in tension zone to the moment
of inertia is neglected without apparent loss of accuracy.
According to the proposed expressions based on bilinear
tensile and compression constitutive model, the predicted
maximum deflection at service load agrees well with tested
value for RUHTCC beams failing in flexure and flexure-shear.
186 S. Xu et al. / Engineering Structures 39 (2012) 176–186
(3) In the case of beams suffering flexure-shear failure, the yield-
ing of reinforcing bar occurred prior to the principal diagonal
cracking, which yielded a large deformation in both RC beam
and RUHTCC beam. But, the deformation of RUHTCC beam
still is far larger than that in RC beam. Particularly, RUHTCC
beam with 2.28% reinforcement ratio presented a deforma-
tion capacity close to that of RC beam with 0.67% longitudinal
steel bar ratio. And, multiple diagonal cracks were observed
in RUHTCC beam.
(4) With respect to RUHTCC beam failing in shear, the shear car-
rying load and shear deformation were respectively about
1.91 and 1.93 times those of RC comparison beam although
they had similar matrix strength. A large reserve in shear
strength after the shear cracking was observed and numer-
ous diagonal cracks with a very narrow spacing appeared
in shear-span zone, too. The horizontal crack along the rein-
forcement observed in reference RC beam was effectively
eliminated in tested RUHTCC beams due to the tensile
strain-hardening behavior of UHTCC and the deformation
compatibility between UHTCC and the steel bar, which
ensured the stable extension of shear cracks in RUHTCC
beam and prevented jump in load and crack width during
loading.
Acknowledgements
This present work was financially supported by the Key Science
and Technology Innovation Team of Zhejiang Province (No.
2010R50034), the Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of
Higher Education (No. 20100101120058), and the Program of the
National Natural Science Foundation of China for Youth (No.
50908029).
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