The reversed cyclic load tests of normal and pre-stressed concrete beams

Seven high-performance concrete (HPC) beams and two counterpart normal-strength concrete (NC) beams are tested under reversed cyclic vertical displacement to investigate the seismic behaviors of normal and pre-stressed HPC beams. The failure patterns, skeleton curves, hysteretic model, displacement restoring capacity, ductility, stiffness degradation and energy dissipation capacity of HPC beams are discussed. An M–ϕM–ϕ hysteretic model for HPC beam sections is proposed in this paper. Studies indicate that the normal beams behave in a more ductile manner in comparison with the pre-stressed beams. Relatively high deformation restoring capacity could also be observed clearly in the pre-stressed HPC beams. Tests also show that the energy dissipation and deformation restoring capacity of HPC beams can be improved significantly in the last period of loading by using blast-furnace slags and polypropylene fibers. Beams with silica fumes have behavior that is not as ductile compared with that without silica fumes. In addition, higher reinforcement also leads to a decrease in the displacement ductility of HPC beams.