Improving the Torsional Capacity of Reinforced Concrete Beams with Spiral Reinforcement

Abstract

An experimental program is carried out in this paper to test nine reinforced concrete (RC) beams in order to study the torsional behavior of the beams using transverse reinforcement under different configurations: ordinary, continuous rectangular spiral, continuous circular spiral, and continuous advanced rectangular spiral configuration. The experimental torsional capacity results are compared with the theoretical values determined by the ACI 318-14 code. The results showed that the use of continuous spiral and rectangular reinforcement as transverse reinforcement enhanced the torsional capacity up to 17 % higher than using traditional reinforcements, and the ACI318-14 torsion equations are applicable and conservative for predicting the ultimate torsional capacity for beams with continuous rectangular and spiral