Abstract
Shear strength of reinforced concrete (RC) beams without shear reinforcement is experimentally investigated, in which compressive strength and effective depth are adopted as major factors. The experiment shows that the size effect of high strength concrete (HSC) beams is more significant than that of normal strength concrete beams, and the nominal shear stress normalized by concrete tensile strength at diagonal cracking is proportional to the -1/2 power of the ratio of effective depth to characteristic length. Based on this relationship a new empirical equation for calculating the shear strength of RC beams without shear reinforcement made of HSC with compressive strength of 80-125N/mm2 is proposed.
