Flexural behavior of continuous beams made of self-compacting concrete (Scc)—experimental and numerical analysis

Abstract

© 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. Self-compacting concrete (SCC) is a type of concrete that is placed in the formwork under its own weight. Although there are many studies showing the behavior of SCC beams, most relate to the behavior of simple supported beams. Unlike those, this is a study of continuous beams made of SCC aimed to analyze their flexural performance as well as to confirm the possibility of using nonlinear finite element analysis (FEA) in the design of such structural elements. An experimental study of three two-span continuous beams of a total length of 3400 mm, with the span between supports of 1600 mm, with 150/200 mm cross section made of SCC exposed to short-term loading, was carried out. The parameter that varied is the percentage of tensile reinforcement, with values of 0.65, 0.86 and 0.94 being selected. As all analyzed beams have shown a satisfactory load-bearing capacity and stiffness, the research confirmed the possibility of using SCC in continuous beams in civil engineering practice. Using Abaqus/Standard software, a nonlinear numerical model is proposed, which is validated and verified against experimental research, as there is only a 5% difference in the numerically calculated ultimate load compared to the experimentally measured values.