An investigation on the effect of hybrid fiber reinforced on the flexural behavior of RC beams having different lap‐spliced lengths

There are only a few studies related to the effect of the hybrid fiber reinforcement on the flexural behavior of full‐scale beam specimens having lap‐spliced length. Thus, this study will ensure important experimental data about the effect of macro steel fibers blended with micro steel fibers on lap‐spliced length. The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of hybrid steel fiber reinforcement on the flexural behavior of full‐scale reinforced concrete beams having different lap‐spliced bars. A sum of three traditional concrete mixtures including a total of 1% fiber by volume fraction was adopted: control mixture without steel fiber, only macro steel fiber and hybrid steel fiber reinforced mixtures. For this purpose, 18 full‐scale beams (200 × 300 × 2000 mm) having three different lap‐spliced length (15, 25, and 35Ø) as tension steel bars were produced and tested under four‐point bending to examine flexural behavior, mode of failure, ductility, and energy absorption capacity properties. In conclusion, the hybrid fiber reinforcement caused the highest increase in the load carrying capacity of the beam specimens. Besides, the hybrid fiber reinforced beam specimens exhibited excellent ductility and energy absorption capacity compared to single fiber reinforced beam specimens. On the other hand, it can be addressed that the hybrid fiber reinforced structural elements had a vital important to compensate the application errors and carelessness in steel bar workmanship, inadequate the lap‐spliced length as per the codes. It can be emphasized that the lap‐spliced length as per the building codes can be reduced in 40% by containing hybrid steel fiber (0.8% macro‐0.2% micro) reinforced concrete without a reduction in load carrying capacity, ductility, and energy absorption capacity compared to control beam specimens without fiber.