Experimental investigation on reinforced concrete beams subjected to axial compressive and shear forces

This paper presents two experimental campaigns carried out on 36 reinforced concrete (RC) beams (with and without shear reinforcement) subjected to a three-point bending loading with a shear force on the one hand, an axial compressive load and a negative bending moment applied at each end of the beams on the other hand. Such a loading configuration makes it possible to investigate the influence of both axial compression and negative bending moment on the shear capacity of RC beams. For each campaign, three values of axial compressive force were studied, and the test beams were divided into two series with low and high negative bending moment. During the tests, Digital Image Correlation technique was used to capture the cracking evolution of the specimens. Besides, the experimental shear strengths of the beams are confronted to the predictions of Eurocode 2 in order to assess its practical validity. Finally, a semi-analytical method proposed by Wahbi et al. 2021 (A failure criterion for RC beams subjected to axial and transverse loadings) for evaluating the resistance domain of RC elements subjected to transverse and axial loads, is extended in this paper to take into account the negative bending moment and compared to the experimental results.