Authors

Abstract

Research in Iraq has expanded in the field of material technology involving the
properties of the light-weight concrete using natural aggregate. Research work
on porcelinite concrete has been carried out in several Iraqi Universities.
However , despite the great practical importance of such concrete in
construction fields ,very limited amount of work has been carried out to
investigate the (shear strength) of structural light-weight aggregate concrete ,
therefore it is important to study the properties and their structural behavior. In this work an attempt is made to study shear strength of porcelinite reinforced
concrete beams without (stirrups). The results have been compared with the
results predicted by the equations of International codes, such as ACI 318M-02,
BS-8110 codes and with some authors' equations as for, Hanson. The
experimental results also have been compared with results obtained from normal
weight concrete specimens that had been prepared for this purpose. The study
mainly deals with the structural behavior of porcelinite reinforced concrete
beams without stirrups, especially the shear strength, besides, the short-term
deflection, strain and cracks. The variables are, compressive strength ranging
between (23.0-29.8) MPa and reinforcement percentages ranging between
(0.0174-0.0307). A total of 12 beams are tested; (9) are light weight concrete
beams without stirrups and (3) are normal weight concrete beams, also without
stirrups. The dimensions of all those beams are 135 * 260 * 1800 mm. The
structural results more often, give values 2.9 times more than that of (ACI-02)