Numerical study on the effect of ECC on shear behaviour of steel-reinforced short beams

This study presents a numerical analysis of the shear behaviour of steel-reinforced beams made of Engineered Cementitious Composites (ECC) material. The numerical model was developed and validated using the shear performance data of three reinforced concrete (RC) short beams and one reinforced ECC (R/ECC) short beam reported in the literature. Following the validation, a parametric study was conducted to examine and evaluate the effects of ECC material properties. First, the material used in beams was changed from concrete to ECC with an equivalent nominal compressive strength, and then, by altering the ECC compressive strength, tensile strength, and tensile strain, the effects of these parameters were systematically evaluated. The results showed that replacing conventional concrete with ECC significantly enhanced the ultimate shear capacity, with shear load gains of up to 60% over the RC counterparts. By altering the ECC compressive strength, tensile strength, and tensile strain values, the subsequent parametric study revealed that the ECC tensile strength (ft) was the dominant material parameter, leading to substantial increases in the ultimate shear load (up to 112% when ft was increased from 1.37 MPa to 5.37 MPa). Meanwhile, the tensile strain capacity played a crucial role in enhancing the overall structural ductility and energy absorption of the R/ECC short beams. The study also found that the ECC compressive strength (f’cr) had a marginal effect on the shear performance of R/ECC short beams.