Reinforced concrete membranes under shear: Global behaviour

The main purpose of this article is to study compressed reinforced concrete membranes under perpendicular tensile stress. The state-of-the-art is presented and it shows that not much research has been done on this topic, probably because it needed very expensive laboratory equipment. In the current investigation, the authors have tried a new type of equipment, less expensive than that of previous investigations, and it proved to be adequate for the type of tests needed for studying this topic. The authors tested six reinforced concrete panels under pure shear up to failure. A parameter that was studied in these tests was the thickness of the membranes. This is of particular importance in webs or walls of beams under shear or torsion forces. From the experimental measurements, the authors have computed the principal directions and the values of the stresses and strains for the tested beams. In this article, these values are presented and the principal strains and stresses are compared with those at 45° and the two fairly agree with each other, particularly for the case of the stresses.