Failure Patterns Of

Differently Reinforced
Beams
-Michael Joseph,120040097
A BALANCED STEEL SECTION - The
sections in which tensile strain in steel
reaches yield strain simultaneously as the
concrete reaches the compressive failure
strain. It is a mathematical consideration
which directly provides us with the value of
the depth of neutral axis.

AN UNDER-REINFORCED BEAM - Under reinforced beam is that in which

provided steel ratio is less than balanced steel ratio. Concrete beams are
designed as under reinforced beams. The reason is that the failure starts by
yielding of steel, which will be ductile, instead of crushing of concrete.

AN OVER-REINFORCED BEAM Exactly to the contrary of an under-reinforced

beam, the over-reinforced beam has more steel imbedded in it as required for a
balanced section. In these sections tensile strain in steel is less than the yield
strain when the concrete reaches the failure strain. This also causes a sudden
failure of the beam which is not helpful.

Study of the failure of an under reinforced beamStep1- The first appearance of micro-crack:
As observed in the video, the first few
cracks (small) started emerging from
the bottom of the under reinforced
concrete beam. They were very slight
cracks which started developing from
the bottom of the beam.
This
enforces the case of concretes
weakness in tension, i.e. the concrete
which is in tension, below the neutral
axis starts to crack.

Step 2- Crack Extension/Widening:

On further increasing the load on the beam, the cracks start extending
upwards along with significant warning. There is also slight bending of the top
plane. Although the structure hasnt failed but the widened crack give a warning
of the possible consequences. This is the main importance of using an under-

reinforced beam. Unlike the overreinforced case, where there was a

sudden collapse of the top even
before the widening of the cracks,
here the cracks have widened with
increasing load in the bottom part
due to the gradual yielding of the steel bars from within the tension part of the
beam. The propagation is due to the yielding of steel which forces them to move
above.

Step 3- Failure in Tension:

The constant increasing load
even after the start of yield of steel
leads to the final collapse of the
beam. The concrete at the top part
also fails off subsequently. This slow
and gradual collapse occurred due to
the ductile failure of the steel
reinforcements in tension. This is the
characteristic of an under-reinforced
beam.
Hence
it
is
always
recommended to have an underreinforced beam in the design of any
structure.

Study of the failure of an over reinforced beamStep1- the first appearance of crack:
As in the previous case, here
also the cracks start appearing at the
bottom of the beam, but to the
contrary they seem to be larger in number as well as spread. The reason for the
bottom cracks as suggested earlier, is the weak tensile strength of concrete.

Step 2- Crack propagation:

Although the first observation
was partly similar, the second step is
where the differences seem to become
clearer in terms of an under reinforced and over reinforced structure. The cracks
instead of opening, as was the case in under-reinforced, start propagating to all
parts of the concrete. *The unstable propagation of cracks to all parts of the

beam is primarily due to their instability on increase of the reinforcement ratio.

Also the steel havent started to yield as such, and the concrete is getting
concentrated at the centre forcing the cracks to spread wider. Apart from this,
slight cracks also develop on the top surface of the concrete, indicating that, its
compressive strength is getting tested.

Step 3- Sudden Failure:

The cracks which had started at
the top of beam lead to its crushing
ultimately on reaching the yield
compressive strength of concrete. The
process of development of cracks and
it leading to the crushing of concrete
is extremely sudden and can be fatal
for somebody under it. This sudden
failure is due to the brittle nature of
concrete and is the primary reason for
the non usage of over reinforced
beams in practical life.

*The Cracks in a Reinforced Beam:

ACI Structural Journal (by Alberto Carpintari, Jacinto Carmona, Giulio Ventura)
This experimental study observed that the crack characteristics varied
drastically in a concrete beam on changing the reinforcement ratio. This study was
mainly to identify the propagated curve of the critical crack (the crack which led to the
ultimate failure) but it also found how the cracks had a real widespread range in
highly reinforced concretes and how their spread kept on increasing with an increased
reinforcement ratio. This is mainly due to an extra chance of shear failure in overly
reinforced beams. The reinforcement reactions cannot control the propagation of
shear cracks, hence the wide spreading.