Flexural Performance of Steel Fiber Concrete Beams Reinforced with Hybrid Schemes

: The flexural behavior of concrete beams reinforced with hybrid reinforcing schemes is investigated experimentally in this work. The effects of steel fibers inclusion on the flexural behavior of concrete beams reinforced using hybrid schemes were investigated using four half-scale beams. The steel fibers content (0.00%, 0.50%, and 1.00%) was the main important parameter. The experimental results demonstrated that steel fibers inclusion significantly improved the ultimate load, stiffness, and toughness of concrete beams. Load capacity was enhanced by 13% and 21% for steel fibers volume ratios of 0.50% and 1.00%, respectively. Toughness improvements were 97.7% and 161% for steel fibers volume ratios of 0.50% and 1.00%, respectively. A non-linear finite element analysis (NLFEA) was performed to simulate the flexural behavior of RC beams reinforced with hybrid schemes. The load-deflection responses and crack patterns of experimental specimens and numerical models were compared. The comparison showed a good agreement between the experimental and numerical results. The overall average value of the ratio between the experimental flexural capacities to the predicted capacities is about 0.94 and the standard deviation was of 0.028.