Influence of section depth on the structural behaviour of reinforced concrete continuous deep beams

Although the depth of reinforced concrete deep beams is much higher than that of slender beams, extensive existing tests on deep beams have focused on simply supported beams with a scaled depth below 600 mm. In the present paper, test results of 12 two-span reinforced concrete deep beams are reported. The main parameters investigated were the beam depth, which is varied from 400 mm to 720 mm, concrete compressive strength and shear span-to-overall depth ratio. All beams had the same longitudinal top and bottom reinforcement and no web reinforcement to assess the effect of changing the beam depth on the shear strength of such beams. All beams tested failed owing to a significant diagonal crack connecting the edges of the load and intermediate support plates. The influence of beam depth on shear strength was more pronounced on continuous deep beams than simple ones and on beams having higher concrete compressive strength. A numerical technique based on the upper bound analysis of the plasticity theory was developed to assess the load capacity of continuous deep beams. The influence of the beam depth was covered by the effectiveness factor of concrete in compression to cater for size effect. Comparisons between the total capacity from the proposed technique and that experimentally measured in the current investigation and elsewhere show good agreement, even though the section depth of beams is varied.