Experimental flexural investigation of RC beams with impeded steel truss using smooth steel angels

Abstract This paper emphasizes on testing the flexural capacity of Hybrid Steel Truss Reinforced Concrete Beam (HSTRCB), where a prefabricated steel truss is embedded into concrete beam instead of conventional rebars, forming a composite section. Five doubly reinforced concrete beams were designed, casted, experimentally tested and analyzed to investigate the flexural behavior of HSTRCB, in comparison to ordinary reinforced concrete beam. All beams were designed according to ACI 318, having same flexural capacity. First beam is ordinary reinforced concrete beam while the other four HSTRCB were designed having identical smooth steel angles, as compression and tension reinforcement, with different shear reinforcement alignment, and spacing. Different smooth truss typology were used as reinforced rebar replacement in the RC beams to determine the significant truss configuration that has highest flexural behaviour. The results showed that HSTRCB improves cracking moment, stiffness, energy absorption and effective cracked moment of inertia during the entire loading stages.