Experimental Investigation of Reinforced Concrete Deep Beams with Wide Loading Elements

Deep members supporting wide loading elements, such as bridge piers or transfer girders, are prevalent in practice but under represented in the experimental literature. This paper presents six large-scale deep beam experiments that use both wide and narrow loading plates, 36 and 12 in. (914 and 305 mm), respectively, with shear span-depth ratios ranging from 1.45 to 2.00. The paper examines the response of these members, including crack patterns and measured strain data. The diagonal crack geometry and results from finite element models indicate that for members with wide loading plates, the compressive stresses are concentrated near the edges of wide elements. This difference in response results in higher shear capacities arising from steeper crack angles when compared to members with smaller loading plates. Nonlinear finite element models using VecTor2 provide reasonable predictions of the member response with a mean test-to-predicted ratio of 1.05.