Experimental study on staggered lapped bars in fiber reinforced concrete beams

The paper presents experimental results on lap splices in Fiber Reinforced Concrete (FRC). Several full-scale beams reinforced with rebars of different diameters were tested with all or part of the longitudinal reinforcement lap spliced at mid-span. A traditional volume fraction of hooked steel fibers (equal to 0.5%) was adopted for FRC. Experimental results show that the toughness of FRC can enhance the behavior of the weak joint with only part of the rebars lapped at the section. The capability of FRC to control the flexural and splitting crack opening and propagation can increase the strength of staggered lapped splices, thus allowing a reduction of lap length.