Failure behavior of strain hardening cementitious composites for shear strengthening RC member

• SHCC has obvious advantage for shear strengthening RC member.
• The carried shear load of strengthened RC member was significantly increased.
• Shear load on SHCC layer was contributed by both matrix and fiber.
• Shear load on SHCC layer was assumed as sum of that carried by matrix and fiber.

This paper presented a experimental investigation into the advantage of RC member with shear strengthening using strain hardening cementitious composites (SHCC), focused on the crack pattern of SHCC strengthening layer and its obvious advantage for increasing the shear load carrying capacity of the strengthened RC member.Especially, the shear failed SHCC member was also adopted to reflect the reduced multiple fine crack distribution in SHCC strengthening layer. Moreover, the contributions of matrix and reinforcing fiber for shear load carrying capacity of SHCC strengthening layer were also calibrated respectively, and the shear load carrying capacity of SHCC strengthening layer was assumed as the sum of load carried by matrix and reinforcing fiber. This work provided experimental foundations for RC member with shear strengthening using SHCC.