Performance of Reinforced Concrete Beams with Rectangular Opening in Flexural and Shear Zone

Abstract

Transverse openings in reinforced concrete beams use to house the utility services like electricity cable, Internet cable, air-conditioning pipe, fire safety pipe line and water-drainage system. These beams opening pipe line system are usually placed underneath the soffit of the beam in term of dead space. This height of dead space that increase the overall building height. Beam opening in the reinforced concrete beams significantly decreases the ultimate load carrying capacity of beam. Transverse beam opening in the web portion of beam produces discontinuities in the usual flow of stresses and that leading stress concentration around the opening region. The importance of this study is to evaluate the performance of reinforced concrete beam with varying size rectangular opening at flexure and shear location ware investigated. A nonlinear finite element analysis was conducted to investigate the effects of different size openings, in terms of ultimate load carrying capacity, Elemental Stresses, load-deflection plot, crack pattern. The work involves investigating performance of different size of small and large rectangular opening. This paper gives new challenges for engineering practice which is in the field of strengthening of concrete structures especially in transverse RC beams with rectangular openings.