Evaluation of Design Methods for Prestressed Concrete Members with Stirrups Using a New Traditional Shear Database

Prestressed concrete (PC) is increasingly used nowadays for the construction of structures subjected to higher loads. Shear design of PC members is complicated and ambiguous as there is no rational and universally accepted shear design procedure. A comprehensive shear database of PC members helps researchers to understand the complicated and ambiguous shear design procedure. In the present study code provisions on shear design based on 45-degree truss analogy (IS 1343:2012 and ACI 318-14), Modified Compression Field Theory (AASHTO LRFD Design Specifications), Variable angle theory (EC-2) have been investigated along with newly proposed shear strength equations. A shear database covering the traditional shear failures of PC beams with stirrups has been developed to assess the shear strength and behaviour of PC beams. Out of 683 shear tests available from the literature on PC beams a total of 274 PC beams with stirrups has been investigated to assess the degree of conservativeness and accuracy of shear design code provisions and shear strength equations. Investigations on the shear code provisions with various variables that govern the shear strength show that serious attention should be given to the prediction of the accurate failure modes for the web-shear and flexure-shear critical specimens. The oversimplifications in the new shear strength equations have also been highlighted in the present study.