Shear Strength of Members without Transverse Reinforcement

Engineers designing concrete structures use many different types of elements including walls, beams, columns, and slabs. Slabs are often designed so that they do not need to contain transverse reinforcement. While such reinforcement can significantly increase member ductility and strength, it can add sufficient cost and time delays during construction that its removal can be an efficient design decision. To safely be able to avoid the use of such reinforcement, it is important that the engineer have a good understanding of how reinforced concrete members without transverse reinforcement behave so that problems can be avoided. This paper will briefly present the one-way shear design methodology used in the Canadian CSA building code as well as the most recent updates to the AASHTO LRFD bridge design specifications. The principles behind the method will be graphically demonstrated against individual data series as well as a larger database of about 1100 published sectional shear failures from the past 60 years.