The American Concrete Institute (ACI) has released a paper called Behavior of Concrete Beams Reinforced with Steel Plates.
The document, written by Muhammad N. S. Hadi, Mazin M. Sarhan, and Lip H. Teh, presents the test results of concrete beams reinforced with checker steel plates and compares their performance to a specimen reinforced with deformed steel bars.
ACI says: “Five specimens having the dimensions of 200 mm (7.87 in.) width, 300 mm (11.8 in.) height, and 4000 mm (157.5 in.) length were tested under fourpoint bending to fail in flexure. Two specimens were reinforced with a horizontal plate each—one using bolts as anchors while another uses angles.”
Another set of two specimens were reinforced with a pair of vertical plates with each one using steel threads as anchors while another used angles.
Compared to the reference specimen, the specimens reinforced with a horizontal plate showed greater ductility. The specimens reinforced with vertical plates had poor ductility, with a precipitous drop in the load at the ultimate limit state.
“All the plate-reinforced specimens were able to reach ultimate loads ranging from 90 to 96% of the theoretical values,” ACI adds.
