The behavior of beams reinforced particularly with superelastic shape memory alloy rebar (SMA) subjected to static load

The experimental research investigation is carried out to study the flexure behavior of beams with the replacement of shape memory alloy rebars (SMAs). The practical program included testing three beams to investigate the effects of the replacement of longitudinal steel rebar by shape memory alloy rebar on the flexure behavior of beams. The study was focused on determining ultimate load, maximum deflection, load-deflection behavior, failure mode, ductility of beams, flexural toughness, and crack pattern at failure. Experimentally, the flexure behavior beams are significantly affected by changing the number of reinforcing bars with shape memory alloys (SMA) longitudinal direction. However, for using two rebars and one rebar of shape memory alloy respectability as a replacement for steel longitudinal reinforcement, the increases in maximum deflection were 19.18% and 14.45% from the reference beam, the ultimate load decreased by 20% and 2.66% from the reference beam, the ductility increased by 56.771% and 19.049% from the reference beam.