Diagonal Cracking and Shear Strength of Reinforced Concrete Beams

The shear failure of non-shear-reinforced concrete beams with normal shear span ratios is observed to be governed in general by the formation of a critical diagonal crack. Under the hypothesis that the cracking of concrete introduces potential yield lines which may be more dangerous than the ones found by the usual plastic theory, a physical explanation is given for this phenomenon and a way to estimate the shear capacity of reinforced concrete beams, based on the theory of plasticity, is described. The theoretical calculations are shown to be in fairly good agreement with test results from a large number of experiments carried out by previous investigators.