The Application of a Probabilistic Method to the Reliability Analysis of Longitudinally Reinforced Concrete Beams

The failure in longitudinally reinforced concrete beams without transverse reinforcement is the most often observed in a support zone due to bending moment and shear force acting simultaneously in a cross section. This kind of failure is called shear failure and in case of slender beams it can lead to dangerous, brittle damage. Therefore the evaluation of reliability of these members is of the paramount importance, all the most because the design procedure given in Eurocode 2 for shear capacity is of an empirical character. In the paper, the reliability analysis of longitudinally reinforced concrete beams designed according to the rules given in Eurocode 2 was performed. Furthermore, the own experimental investigations were presented. The experiments focused on determining shear capacity and observing the failure process in longitudinally reinforced concrete beams without stirrup of a rectangular and a T-shape cross section. The obtained experimental results were used to calculate the difference of safety margins of the designed shear resistance calculated on the basis of the formula from Eurocode 2 according to reinforced concrete beams without transverse reinforcement of different cross sections.