Shear behaviour of geopolymer-concrete beams transversely reinforced with continuous rectangular GFRP composite spirals

Abstract

This paper investigated the shear behaviour of geopolymer-concrete beams reinforced with continuous glass-fibre-reinforced polymer (GFRP) composite spirals. Eight large-scale beams were designed, cast, and tested up to failure to evaluate the effects of the spiral pitch, web-reinforcement configuration, shear-span-to-effective-depth ratio, and longitudinal-reinforcement ratio. The results showed that the spirally-reinforced beam produced shear strength and deflection capacities that were 20% and 120% higher than the conventionally reinforced beam. These enhancements could be attributed to the inclination of the spiral links being approximately normal to the shear cracking direction and the c..