Consistent strut-and-tie modelling of deep beams with web openings

This paper presents an original and novel approach to analyse the shear strength of deep beams with rectangular openings and with various configurations of web reinforcement. Up to now, no code provision has existed for the design of such beams. Moreover, there are very few published papers that include analysis of deep beams with web openings and with web reinforcement. In most cases, the beneficial effect of web reinforcement is ignored for simplicity. The authors developed five models to cater for different configurations of web reinforcement. These include various combinations of horizontal, vertical and inclined web reinforcement. The main attraction of the approach is that it identifies the most critical nodes in the truss analogy. For simplicity, only the bottom nodal zone is considered. Although this approach cannot be used to predict the failure modes of deep beams, it yields consistent and accurate predictions with three experimental case studies comprising a total of 15 beams.