Structural Behavior of Reinforced Reactive Powder Concrete Tapered Beams

The present study can be divided into five groups following its five goals. The first goal was to check the effect of compressive strength on the structural behavior of tapered and prismatic beams. The second goal was to study the effect of the tensile reinforcement ratio on the structural behavior of reactive powder concrete (RPC) tapered beams. The third goal was to study the influence of the tapering ratio on the structural behavior of RPC beams. The fourth goal was to study the influence of the shear reinforcement ratio. The last goal was to check the effect of the tapering direction on the structural behavior of RPC beams. Therefore, nine simply supported beams were tested under one-point loading action at their midspans. Seven of the beams were tapered [six of them were made with RPC, and one of them was constructed with a normal concrete (NC)]. The last two beams had rectangular prismatic shapes (one of them was RPC, and the second was NC). All beams had the same overall length of 2,000 mm, a clear span distance equal to 1,850 mm, and the same width of 200 mm. The test results show that the tapered beam made with RPC had a superior ultimate load compared with the NC tapered beam and that the ultimate load increased when the tapering ratio increased. The ultimate load of the tapered beam was also found to be increased when the longitudinal and shear reinforcement ratio increased. In addition, the ultimate load of the tapered beam was greater than that of the prismatic beam.