Evaluation of shear strength of high-strength conventional and sustainable concretes: experiments, models and literature

Studies on the shear capacity of sustainable concretes are limited. In this work, a new approach for the evaluation of concrete shear strength was developed through experiments, simulation and the results reported in the literature. The shear strengths of M25, M40, M60 and M80 conventional concretes were studied using experiments and Abaqus/CAE simulations. The shear strength of sustainable concretes of M40 grade (made by replacing 10–50% of cement with electric arc furnace slag, 10–70% of natural fine aggregate with slag fine aggregate and 10–50% of natural coarse aggregate with plastic aggregate) was also studied. The measured shear strengths of the M25, M40, M60 and M80 conventional concretes were 5.77, 10.55, 11.21 and 16.13 MPa, respectively, whereas the predicted shear strengths of M25, M40, M60 and M80 were 6.57, 9.63, 13.72 and 15.79 MPa, respectively (a deviation of ∼22%). The shear strengths of the sustainable concretes predicted by the proposed model were found to be conservative compared with the results reported in previous studies. The shear strengths obtained from the experiments and simulations were compared with the results of empirical equations available in the literature. Overall, the experimental and simulation results indicated conservative estimates of shear strength relative to existing models.