Effect of Depth on Shear capacity

of Transfer Beam in High rise

building
By- Kalpesh Patel
SD0308
Index
Introduction to transfer beam
Study on shear capacity of RC beam
Experimental Programme
Material properties
Test Procedure
Test Result And Discussion
Conclusions
What is Transfer beam?

To provide for functional requirement of large column
free space in high rise building ,the RC column are
placed at the periphery of the built-up plan area.

With a view to developing high flexural and torsional
stiffness ,these column are very closely spaced and
connected through very stiff beam ,called as Spandrel
beam.
These closely spaced columns at the periphery,
however, pose hindrance to the movement of people and
the goods at the ground floor and basement levels.



To fulfill this requirement , the columns at these floor
levels have to be placed at larger spacing.

As a result an interface has to be provided between the
closely spaced columns of the upper floor and the widely
spaced columns at the ground or basement level. This
interface has to be a horizontal RC element and , hence,
is referred as Beam.


Conventionally , a beam is taken to be a flexural member
of the structural system. The above mentioned interface
beam, dose not behave as a flexural member ,since it
gets sandwiched between closely spaced upper columns
and a little widely spaced supporting columns below it.

Also to transfer the high magnitude of loads collected
from all the upper floor of a high-rise building , the depth
of the interface beam has to kept much higher than the
conventional beams , ranging from 1 m to 4.5 m.



As the result of this , the load transfer mechanism
through this beam becomes altogether different from the
conventional mechanism of flexure , and failure of such
beam is in brittle mode.

Such a beam is referred to as TRASFER BEAM

It is therefore , required to generate the shear capacity
of transfer beams.

Figure shows a 25 storey building having Transfer beam
of 1.7 m depth provided at ground floor level to create a
space for free movement of people and for parking
purpose.

In spite of its wide structural application , only a few
national codes include their design.

For example , the British standard BS 8110 for structural
use of concrete explicitly state that, for the design of
deep beams , reference to be made to specialist
literature



Similarly,Euro-2 for design of concrete structure state
that it is not apply to the deep beam.

Consequently, there is no specific , unified , and rational
design procedure available in the codes of these
countries.

I describe the experimental studies conducted on beam
of different depth to investigate the effect of depth on
shear capacity of transfer beam in high rise buildings.
Study on shear capacity of RC beam
What is shear span?
it is the horizontal distance between load on top of
beam and support.
The study on beam related to varying shear- span to
depth ratio (a/d) has been carried out by varying the depth
(d) and not by varying the shear span (a).

This has been done to achieve flow of applied load
through the entire depth of body of concrete.

This allows the concrete to develop stress over the full
depth of beam which varies non-linearly across the depth.

This aspect is very distinct, important and relevant from
view points of the structural response of the beams.

It is to be particularly noted that the same value of a/d
can be attained by varying the shear span (a) which is
easy to implement since it simply demands shifting of the
top loading points toward the supports.

This way of varying the shear span-to-depth ratio dose
not result in the true structural response as in a deep
beam to be used as a transfer beam.

The failure patterns are significantly different in the two
sets of beams , one obtained by varying the depth (d) ,
and second by varying the shear-span (a) having the
same a/d ratio.

The primary objective of the research is to build-up shear
resisting capacity in RC beams by increasing the depth.



Experimental Programme
Shear strength of concrete is evaluated experimentally.

This is so primarily due to interlocking of the coarse
aggregates among themselves.

As a result of particle interlocking , it is not feasible to
apply a shearing action ( direct shearing force) in a plane ,
as is customarily done in the case of metals.

Experiments have to be , therefore , devised to indirectly
asses the shear strength of concrete.
In one of the popularly adopted devices, a beam of
appropriate length is subjected to shearing and
bending action under 4 points loading system (2-
active and 2-passive forces) as shown in fig.

Beam subjected to be constant shear is refereed to as
shear span , which offers itself to be studied for
performance under shear , bending being negligible for
short shear span.

In the present study, such a device has been adopted to
study the performance of concrete under direct shearing
action.

Once steel bars are introduction generally along a
direction perpendicular to shearing force , these bars start
coming in to action to resist shearing force.


Thus , steel bars becomes essential linked to resisting
shearing force along with the inherent concrete resistance.

The shear resistance due to these longitudinal steel bars
is commonly referred as dowel effect.

The primary design variable was depth in term of shear
span-to-depth ratio.

The study aims to investigation the effect of depth of
beams in terms of shear span-to-depth ratio on shear
strength of concrete.
Material properties

The test specimens were cast using cement , fine
aggregate, coarse aggregate , water and
susperplasticizer. The materials, in general, conformed to
the specification laid down in the relevant Indian Standard
Codes. For grading of fine and coarse aggregate , sieve
analysis was carried out.
Cement:


ordinary portland cement of 43-grade conforming to
IS:8112:1989 was used throughout the experimental
work.

All test were carried out as per IS:4031-1988

The specific gravity and finess respective were 3.14 and
275 m2/kg



Coarse aggregate:

Crushed granite obtained from a local source was used
as coarse aggregate and maximum size used was 20
mm along with 10 mm size.

Fine aggregate:

Locally available sand was used as fine aggregate. The
specific gravity was 2.6 and fineness modulus was 2.29.

Superplasticizer :

A modified melamine based highly effective high range
water reducing concrete admixture was used throughout
the investigation. It was dark brown in colour having 1.22
specific gravity.

Reinforcing steel rebar:

Thermo mechanically treated (TMT) rebar of Fe 415
grade was used.
Concrete Mix Design
The concrete mix were designed in accordance with the
Indian standard recommended method of concrete mix
design (IS 10262 1982).

The concrete mix table was prepared for 400kg/m3
cement content.
Table-1: Concrete Mix properties
Sr. No. Description Value
1 Cube compressive strenth (MPa) 43.00
2 Cement (kg) 24.50
3 Fine Aggregate (Send) (kg) 44.50
4 Coarse Aggregate (kg) 81.00
5 Water - Cement Ratio 0.32
6 Water (Litres) 7.80
7 Plasticizer as % of wt. of cement 0.85
8 Mix Proportion 1:1.82:3.31
Test specimen


Twelve specimens were designed and fabricated. The
span of beam kept constant at 1 m with 0.1 m
overhanging on either side of the supports.

The spacing between the top two pointsloads has been
kept at 200 mm as shown in fig . The depth of the beam
varied at 150 , 200, 250, 300, 350, and 400 mm to
achieve desired six shear span to depth ratio (a/d ratios).

All beam were rectangular in cross section, 100 mm
wide .

Standard cubes (150 mm X 150 mm X 150 mm), cylinder
(150 mm X 300 mm), were cast with each mix to know
the various mechanical properties of concrete.
Test Procedure
After 28 days curing period, the beam specimens were
removed from the curing tank and both sides of the beam
were white-washed to aid observation of crack
development during testing.

Load was applied gradually with the help of jack and
deflection of proving ring was recorded to find the failure
load.

All the beams were tested to failure under four-point
loading test set-up (2-active, 2-passive) as shown in fig-
The cube specimens were tested for compressive
strength, the cylinder specimens for split tensile strength.
Crack in beam

Test Result And Discussion

The result obtained from the experimental investigation
are shown in table-2.






All beam specimens failed in shear i.e. a sudden failure
without warning , loud noise at failure with the
appearance of single shear crack in the shear span and
fine flexural cracks in the middle portion of the beam.

The shear crack crosses the compression zone of the
beam. Figure shows typical crack pattern for RC beam
specimens of different a/d ratio.
1.for depth D=150 mm


2.for depth D=200 mm



3.for depth D=250 mm
4.for depth D=300 mm



5.for depth D=350 mm



6.for depth D=400 mm

From, the result obtained , the effect of depth of beam in
term of shear spantodepth ratio on shear strength of
concrete are analyzed and discussed as follows.
Effect of depth of beams in terms of
shear span-to-depth (a/d) ratio

The shear strength of concrete beams for different
depths at 28 days curing age and the variation of shear
strength with different shear span-to-depth ratio is shown
in table-2.

It is evident from the plots that high shear strength is
developed at lower value of span-to-depth ratio and the
shear strength decreases at higher value of span-to-
depth ratio.
0.75
1.25
1.75
2.25
2.75
0.25
1.1 1.23 1.45 1.78 2.29 3.2
Shear span to depth ratio



S
h
e
a
r

s
t
r
e
s
s

(
M
P
a
)


Figure shows the effect of shear span-to-depth ratio on
nominal shear stress at diagonal cracking , which is
obtained by dividing measured failure load to the nominal
cross sectional area (bXd).

As the shear span-to-depth (a/d) ratio decreases, the
shear strength increases .

The increase in shear strength is significant in RC beam
specimens with a/d ratio less than about 1.78 (AI-
0.8/1.10, AII-0.8/1.23 , AIII-0.8/1.45) , because a
significant portion of the shear is transmitted directly to
the support by an inclined strut.

This mechanism is frequently referred to as arch action
and the magnitude of direct load transfer increases with
decreasing a/d ratio.

The shear strength of RC beam with a/d ratio less than
1.78 is higher than those of RC beam with a/d ratio more
than 1.78.

This result is due to the beneficial effect of direct load
transfer to the support by arch action or so called strut-
and-tie load transfer mechanism.

The transition point between the arch action and beam
action ( or transfer beam and normal beams) lies
between a/d ratio 1.45 to 1.78.

Either side of this a/d ratio , behaviors of RC beams in
term of load resisting mechanism , failure pattern and the
noise at failure , were entirely different.
Conclusions

The primary objective of the research was to built-up
shear resisting capacity in beam by increasing the depth
of the experimental result and the nature of variation of
shear strength against independent parameters , the
following broad conclusions are arrived at:

1.shear resisting capacity of beam significantly depends
upon the shear span-to depth ratio (a/d)


Beam with higher value of a/d (a/d > 1.8) exhibit
increasing influence of moment and hence develop
flexural shear crack in the tension zone.

Such beam may be categorized as normal beams
(flexural beams) and have a/d ratio in excess of 1.8


2.shear resisting capacity of beam in the lower range of a/d
ratio (a/d <1.8) shows non-linear increase.

A transition range , shear capacity increases rapidly with
gradual disappearance of flexural cracks .

The beams fail in sudden splitting mode with increasing
loud sound. Sudden splitting with loud sound is a
measure of brittleness.

This may be taken as a transition zone between a normal
beam and a deep beam.

3.beams with a/d<1.5 are observed to possess very rapidly
increasing shear resistance capacity

Failure patterns are very different suggesting new
mechanism to look for in the process of building-up shear
capacity.

This is of particular interest since transfer beam fall in
this rang of a/d ratio.

While the beam shows very high shear resistance , they
tend to fail in highly brittle mode.

This mode is characterized by sudden failure in shear
with very loud sound .

This mode of failure is considered undesirable and is
branded as treacherous.



References:

Building code requirement for structural concrete and commentary
(ACI-318)

Structure use of concrete-part 1:code of practice for design and
construction (BS-8110)

Civil engineering and construction review magazine.

IS : 456-2000

Reinforced concrete design : by H.J.Shah






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