Revisiting Cracking in Reinforced Concrete Beams: An Updated Analysis

Abstract

As materials and structural optimization continue to be important in design, structural safety checks for service limit states have become increasingly important. One key aspect of these checks is the controlling of cracks to prevent them from affecting the structure’s function or appearance. However, the authors have found that current regulations do not accurately reflect the reality of crack behavior. This is the case of the crack spacing. To address this issue, the authors conducted experiments on 27 reinforced concrete beams to investigate crack location, cracking moment, corresponding deflection, and crack width values as sag increases. Their main finding was that cracks tend to appear at the stirrup locations, and that crack width increases linearly with the sag-to-free-span ratio up to the yielding point. They also concluded that increasing the amount of tensile reinforcement is an effective way to reduce crack width for the same sag.