A study on the behavior of RC beams provided with WWM as shear reinforcement for different shear span to depth ratios

It known from the literature that shear behavior of RC beams is influenced by the shear span to depth ratio (a/d). In general, the stirrups are used in providing the shear resistance in RC beams. The use of conventional stirrups makes the high shear stress region i.e., the core zone of RC beam cross section as un-reinforced. This makes the shear cracks to propagate rapidly in the core zone and leads to the brittle failure of RC beams under shear. The use of Welded wire mesh (WWM) as a transverse reinforcement in place of conventional stirrups makes the core zone of the RC beam cross section reinforced and provides better shear resistance. This paper presents an experimental investigation on the effect of using welded wire mesh as core zone transverse reinforcement in place of conventional stirrups in RC beams with different shear span to depth ratio. The experimental study indicated the effectiveness of WWM in RC beams with a/d > 2.5 and shown the better performance compared to the shear resistance of RC beams provided with the conventional stirrups. A new parameter termed as ‘Mesh index’ which takes in to account indirectly the effect of welded wire mesh (WWM) has a good correlation in predicting the shear strength of RC beams.