Abstract

Shear failure of reinforced concrete beams is usually sudden, occur without sufficient advanced warning. This type of shear failure is considered to be high risk type of failure. The cost and safety of shear reinforcement in reinforced concrete beams led to the study of other alternatives. Designers try to avoid the shear mode of failure when designing reinforced concrete beam due to the sudden nature of shear failure. Swimmer bar system is a new type of shear reinforcement. It is a small inclined bar, with its both ends bent horizontally for a short distance and welded to both top and bottom flexural steel reinforcement. Regardless of the number of swimmer bars used in each inclined plane, the swimmer bars form plane-crack interceptor system instead of bar-crack interceptor system when stirrups are used. Test results of reinforced concrete beams will be presented. The effectiveness of the new swimmer bar system as related to the old stirrup system will be discussed. Beam deformation is also measured in the laboratory.

Key words: Swimmer bar, deflection, shear, crack, stirrup.