Shear-flexure interaction in the critical sections of short coupling beams

Heavily-loaded short coupling beams with large amounts of transverse reinforcement fail in sliding shear or diagonal compression under the complex interaction between shear and flexure. These failure modes often occur after yielding of the flexural reinforcement and limit the displacement capacity of the member. To study such failures, this paper compares experimental results with predictions of models with various levels of complexity. It is shown that complex nonlinear finite element models (FEM) can capture adequately the entire behaviour of short coupling beams, while the classical flexural model produces unconservative strength predictions. It is also shown that strut-and-tie models are reasonably conservative provided that their geometry is selected to maximize the strength predictions. To produce similarly adequate strength predictions as those of the FEM – while at the same time maintaining the simplicity of the flexural model – the paper proposes a mechanical model based on strain compatibility. The main assumption of the model links the principal compressive strains in the critical section to the longitudinal strains in the tension zone. It is shown that the model captures well the effect of different test variables on the shear strength. When applied to a database of 24 tests, the model produced an average shear strength experimental-to-predicted ratio of 1.12 with a coefficient of variation of 8.4%.