A Simple Method for Calculating the Shear Deformation of Reinforced Concrete Elements in the Elastic and Plastic Domains

Abstract

This paper proposes a simple method for calculating the shear deformation and the shear capacity of reinforced and prestressed concrete elements containing shear reinforcement. This new approach considers that, for large deformations, concrete elements follow compatibility conditions based on displacements of the composite material subjected to shearing forces. The result is a beam, inspired by the Timoshenko-Ehrenfest beam theory, which considers a new hypothesis regarding shearing deformation, informed by the behavior of the shear reinforcement. The new method is compared with previous approaches, allowing us to assess the technological advances of the new proposal. The new method is easy to implement and provides information about the shearing deformation (in the elastic and plastic domains) and the shearing capacity of concrete beam-column elements. A detailed example is developed, in which all the components of the shear deformation are evaluated, and the simplification of the new method is analyzed in comparison with other more comprehensive methods in the elastic domain.