EPJ Web of Conferences 183, 02038 (2018)

https://doi.org/10.1051/epjconf/201818302038
DYMAT 2018

Experimental investigation of Low velocity impact response of

reinforced concrete beams without stirrups
Yingqian Fu1,2*, Xinlu Yu1,2, Xinlong Dong1, Fenghua Zhou1
1
Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Mechanics, Ningbo University, 315211 Ningbo, China
2
School of Mechatronical Engineering, Beijing Institute of Technology, 100081 Beijing, China

Abstract. This paper presents an experimental program of reinforced concrete beam without stirrups tested
by impact three-point-bending under different initial velocity (drop height). As the results shown, for the
static events, the failure mode is bending firstly, and then translates to shearing. the longitudinal
reinforcements play an important role for the increasing of loading during bending stage. For the impact
events, reinforced concrete beams failed in a flexural failure model at slow rates of loading and in shear
failure model at high impact loading rate relatively. Moreover, the shear failure and bending failure have
developed during the peak stage of Force-deflection curves. That is different with the emergence sequence
of cracks under static tests. So the mechanical parameters of peak stage should be considered for the
resistance of concrete beam under impact loading.

1 Introduction used to achieve the displacement and strain field on the

surface of beam. This paper presents an experimental
The analysis and design of reinforced concrete beams for program of reinforced concrete beam without stirrups
the resistance of impact loading have been investigated tested by impact three-point-bending under different
by many researchers [1-3]. Numerous experimental and initial velocity (drop height) and comparing with the
analytical studied have been conducted for the impact- static three-point-bending results. The failure process
resistance of building including the failure patterns, was investigated, and the strain state of shear failure was
loading, deflection, monument and energy [4-6]. discussed. This paper can be helpful to understanding the
Experimental studies have revealed that shear failure effect of shear failure mechanism and supplying the
play an important role on the resistance of impact further study by numerical and analytical method.
loading. Three-point-bending test under drop height
impacting was employed widely to investigate the
impact behavior of reinforced concrete beam or plate. 2 Experimental program
For the most of failure patterns, in the impact three-
point-bending test, severer dialogue cracks often were 2.1 Material and specimens
found under high speed loading. However, most of
experiences only focus on the relationship between The experimental program consisting of 15 beams were
loading conditions and phenomenal results, such as 70 mm in width, 100 mm in height, and 600 mm in
between impact velocity (or impact monument or impact length and the reinforced concrete beams without
energy ) and failure patterns, or between reinforcement stirrups were just singly or doubly reinforced with the
ratio (or strength of matrix) and failure patterns, little longitudinal reinforcement bars placed symmetrically
effort was spent to understand the inner failure along the bottom of the specimens with the cover of
mechanism of shearing or bending of reinforced concrete 16mm in thickness as Fig.1 shown. All specimens were
beam under impact loading. Even if the numerical cast at the same time and using the same concrete batch
methods were adopted numerically to discuss the failure and curing condition to make sure the identical
mechanism, but it is difficult to simulate very well for mechanical behavior of matrix. Ordinary Portland
the complexity of reinforced concrete material and cement was used in this investigation with a 28 days
structure. compressive strength of 42.5 MPa conforming to P. I.
In this paper, a well design experimental instruments 42.5. The coarse aggregates are rounded in shape and
of drop height testing system was employed including range in size from 12 mm down to 5 mm. The river sand
the easy-controlling impactor, the accurate loading with a specific gravity of 2600 kg/m3 constituted the fine
detectors, the high speed image capture system and the aggregate. In all mixtures, the ratio of water and cement
displacement and strain field calculation method. was 0.2. The preparation and the cure of all the mixes
Especially, the Digital Image Calculation method was were conducted under laboratory conditions. Then, all

*
Corresponding author: imech2012@gmail.com
© The Authors, published by EDP Sciences. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution
License 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
EPJ Web of Conferences 183, 02038 (2018) https://doi.org/10.1051/epjconf/201818302038
DYMAT 2018

specimens were cured in a fog room for 28 days within sprayed to achieve a random distribution of gray level. A
20±2 °C, 95% relative humidity. rectangle region was marked on the surface of beam, at
For the impact tests, involved 12 beams, were the same time, the hemispherical tip of impactor was
divided into four groups in terms of impact height H0 also sprayed to achieve its movement.
(1.2 m, 2.4 m, 3.6 m and 4.8 m). Table 1 presents the
overview of the entire test program, each group includes
four tests with different drop heights, and each even
includes the corresponding reinforcement ratio, mass,
initial impact velocity, monument and energy. The
specimen denoted by PR0.8-1.2 means ‘Plain
Reinforcement’ beam with longitudinal reinforcement
ratio 0.8 impacted at the drop height of 1.2 m. In
addition, three beams were cast to determine the static
behavior of the specimens corresponding to the impact
tests in the name of S-PR0.4 where ‘S’ means ‘Static’. Fig. 1. Sketch of setups and specimens.
Table 1. Impact test program.
P ROI
# H0 (m) V0 (m/s) M0 (kg.m/s) E 0 (J)
Central
PR0.8-1.2 1.2 4.85 186.2 451.6 layer
PR0.8-2.4 2.4 6.86 263.4 903.2
PR0.8-3.6 3.6 8.40 322.6 1355
PR/2 Mid-span PR/2
PR0.8-4.8 4.8 9.70 372.5 1806

Fig. 2. ROI of DIC.

2.2 Test setup and procedure

For the impact loading, a drop-weight impact system 3 Experimental results

was well design as Fig.1 shown, in which a drop hammer
with a mass of 38.4 kg was dropped freely from three 3.1 Static test results
different heights (1.2 m, 2.4 m, 3.6 m and 4.8 m). The
striking head of impactor had a hemispherical tip with a Load- deflection responses and crack patents of static
radius of 60mm, and the supporters were also designed tests are presented in Fig. 3. For the specimen of S-
as a hemispherical tip with a radius of 30 mm for PR0.8, the diagonal crack was found obviously, and
allowing the beam to rotate freely. The specimens were there are one bending crack near the mid-span can be
tested under simply supported conditions with a shear found with carefully checking as the red line marked on
span of 250 mm, leaving 50 mm overhang at each end. specimen. The DIC results corresponding to the load-
The impact force data acquisition system included deflection curve were shown in Fig. 3 where the
two piezoelectric force transducers, one of was mounted horizontal displacement cloud map was chosen to
to the impact mass with the maximum range of 600 kN delicate the failure evolution. The force increased with
sandwiched between the hemispherical tip of impactor the increment of deflection near to linear before the point
head and the upper bar as Fig. 2 shown. Then, the other of S1, the cracks haven't emerged. After the point of S1,
load cell was placed beneath the left support the force increased non-linearly with the increment of
hemispherical tip with the maximum range of 50 kN. deflection for the bending crack was found at the bottom
Both of them were recorded on the same data logger of mid-span of beam. Until to the point S2, the
with sampling of 1 MHz by a high speed responding discontinuity of displacement was observed at the
oscilloscope. At the same time, the impact events were bottom of left part of beam. After the point of S3, the
recorded by using a high speed camera at the sampling dialogue crack formed and propagated the loading point,
rate of 40 kHz. An electric-photo switch which could and the force didn't increase mostly as the increasing of
generate a electrical single when the laser line blocked deflection, then the dialogue crack evaluated to the main
by drop-weight was employed to trigger the oscilloscope crack, and the force was decreased with the develop of
and camera synchronous. deflection slowly after the point of S4.
And the images captured from high speed camera As the results shown, for the reinforced concrete
were analyzed by 2D digital image correlation method beam under static loading, the failure mode is bending
(2D-DIC) software MatchID-2D to track the motion of firstly, and translates to shearing with the increasing of
drop-weight and beam. The DIC technique can obtain a deflection. During the bending stage, the bearing loading
continuous field of displacement, strain components on will increase with the increment of deflection, but the
the surface of specimen by comparing of the gray level increment of loading will stop even to decay under
distribution between deformed images and reference shearing stage. For the bending failure, the longitudinal
images. A Region of Interesting (ROI) is chose firstly as reinforcements play an important role for the increasing
Fig. 2 shown. In this region, a lot of small sparkles are of loading after the linear stage in the load- deflection

2
EPJ Web of Conferences 183, 02038 (2018) https://doi.org/10.1051/epjconf/201818302038
DYMAT 2018

curves, but the shearing capacity lost for the structure PR0.8 series, failure model of RC beam transforms from
without stirrups. flexural failure to shear failure with the increment of
25
drop height. Moreover, all the impact evens, the
longitudinal reinforcements were broken near the middle
20 span.
The impact force and mid-span deflection time
15 S3
S4 history curves for all tests are shown in Fig. 5. For the
impact force time history curves, as Fig. 5(a) shown, the
Force (kN)

S2 peak impact force increases obviously with the

10
increment of drop height, even the peak force of 4.8 m
S1 three times greater than event of 1.2 m. And the duration
5
of peak is so short less than 0.5ms for all impact events.
After the peak, the magnitude of impact force is very
0 low corresponding to the balance with reaction force of
0 1 2 3 4
supporters. All the deflection data is the movement of
Deflection (mm)
(a) mid-span of beam determined by DIC method as Fig. 5(b)
shown. It is clearly that the deflection developed faster
with the increasing of drop height.

4.8 m/s

(b) 6.7 m/s

S1
8.4 m/s

S2 9.7 m/s

Fig. 4. Crack patterns of impact tests under different initial

height of 1.2 m (a), 2.4 m (b), 3.6 m (c), and 4.8 m (d).

S3 300

1.2m
250 2.4m
3.6m
200 4.8m
Impact force (kN)

150
S4
100

50

(c) 0

Fig. 3. Force-deflection curves (a), crack patterns (b) and -50

horizontal displacement (mm) evolution (c) of static tests. 0 1 2 3 4

Time (ms)
(a)
3.2 Impact test results
35

1.2m
30 2.4m
Details of cracks profiles and failure model of beam at 3.6m
4.8m
each test evens are summarized in Fig. 4: Typical flexure 25

failure was observed for the drop height of 1.2 m, 2.4 m,

Deflection (mm)

20

and shear failure was found in the event of PR0.8-3.6

and PR0.8-4.8. For the flexure failure crack patterns, 15

only one bending crack developed from the bottom 10

surface towards top surface of the beam at the impact

point. With the increment of the drop height to 3.6 m, a
5

flexural crack was found at the mid-span and a diagonal 0

crack formed in the left half side. For the drop height to
0 1 2 3 4
Time (ms)
4.8 m, the failure was more severe than 3.6 m and (b)
several dialogue cracks were found. As the result of Fig. 5. Impact force (a) and mid-span deflection (b) of impact
tests.

3
EPJ Web of Conferences 183, 02038 (2018) https://doi.org/10.1051/epjconf/201818302038
DYMAT 2018

To investigate the shearing failure of reinforced D5

concrete beam under impact loading, the event of PR0.8-
4.8 was chose in this paper. The DIC results
corresponding to the impact force-deflection curve were
shown in Fig.6 where the horizontal displacement cloud
map was chosen to delicate the failure evolution. At the D6
point of D1, no crack was found, and a single crack
could be determined at bottom of middle span of beam
when the force reached to the maximum point of D2.
After the central bending crack emerged, the impact
force decayed sharply. At the point of D3, a dialogue
crack was observed at the left part of beam, and the Fig. 6. Force-deflection curves and horizontal displacement
(mm) evolution of PR0.8 - 4.8 m.
initiation of this crack did not located at the bottom of
beam but the upside of beam near the impact point. At DIC can be used to measure the range of strain by
the point of D4, near the end of peak of impact force, calculating a series of pictures record by high speed
dialogue cracks can be found at both side of beam. Until camera. This method provides a way to investigate the
to D6 point, all cracks has been mature. As mentioned emergency sequence of cracks and access the strain state
above, reinforced concrete beams fail in a flexural of failure. The strain distribution along the horizontal
failure model at slow rates of loading and in shear failure line on the central layer of PR0.8- 4.8 m was plotted in
model at high rate impact loading relatively. Though the Fig. 7. The obvious increment of strain was found at the
dialogue crack was obvious for the shear model crack time of D3, shear strain and tension strain increased at
patterns, the central flexural crack and hair line cracks the same time. That means the shear failure and bending
can be found too. That means the failure of beams under failure have developed during the peak stage of Force-
high rate impact loading is the mixture of shear model deflection curves. That is different with the emergence
and flexural model. sequence of cracks under static tests. So the mechanical
350

D2
parameters of peak stage should be considered for the
300 resistance of concrete beam under impact loading.
250

200 D3
D1
Force (kN)

150

100

X
50
D4
D1
0 0.008 138mm
D2
D5 D6
0.006 D3
-50 D4
0 2 4 6 0.004
D5
Disp (mm) 0.002
Exy

D6
0.000

D1 -0.002

-0.004
0.010100 200 300 400 500
D1
0.008 D2
D3
0.006
D4
Exx

0.004 D5
D2 D6
0.002

0.000

100 200 300 400 500

Coordination of X (mm)

D3 Fig. 7. Strain distribution along the horizontal line on the

central layer of PR0.8 - 4.8 m.

4 Summary
D4
This paper presents an experimental program of
reinforced concrete beam without stirrups tested by
impact three-point-bending under different initial
velocity (drop height). As the results shown, for the
static events, the failure mode is bending firstly, and then
translates to shearing. The longitudinal reinforcements
play an important role for the increasing of loading

4
EPJ Web of Conferences 183, 02038 (2018) https://doi.org/10.1051/epjconf/201818302038
DYMAT 2018

during bending stage. For the impact events, reinforced 3. N. Kishi , O. Nakano, K.G. Matsuoka and T. Anto,
concrete beams failed in a flexural failure model at slow Impact behavior of shear-failure-type RC beams
rates of loading and in shear failure model at high impact without shear rebar. International Journal of Impact
loading rate relatively. Moreover, the shear failure and Engineering, 27(9), 955-968 (2002)
bending failure have developed during the peak stage of
4. K. Fujikake, B. Li B, and S. Soeun, Impact response
Force-deflection curves. That is different with the
of reinforced concrete beam and its analytical
emergence sequence of cracks under static tests. So the
evaluation. Journal of Structural Engineering,
mechanical parameters of peak stage should be
135(8), 938-950 (2009)
considered for the resistance of concrete beam under
impact loading. 5. S. Saatici, F. Vecchio, Effects of shear mechanisms
on impact behavior of reinforced concrete beams,
ACI Structure Journal, 106(1), 78-86 (2009)
References 6. S. Saatici, F. J. Vecchio, Non-linear finite element
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