Validation of Shear Design Regulations for Prestressed Members with Shear Reinforcement in Revised Eurocode 2

The proposed revision of the Eurocode 1992-1-1 contains an updated method to determine the shear resistance of members with shear reinforcement in which no concrete contribution (other than compression strut capacity) is taken into account. In the past in the Netherlands shear provisions were applied in which contributions of concrete and stirrups are determined and combined using a specified angle of the compression field. The method in the proposed Eurocode revision allows for a much lower compression field angle and searches for an angle such that simultaneous yielding of the stirrups and crushing of the concrete compressive field occurs. In the Netherlands, a significant amount of bridges exist consisting of prestressed beams with shear reinforcement designed with former methods which combined concrete contribution and stirrups contribution in the shear resistance. Therefore, it was decided to investigate how this new method compares to previous methods. In this research a database has been created of experiments on the shear capacity of prestressed concrete beams with shear reinforcement, of which dimensions and other characteristics are representative for existing Dutch bridges. The results from these experiments are compared with the analytical solutions following from the new proposed Eurocode revision, current Eurocode regulations, and (former) national regulations used for assessment. Preliminary results show that the proposed Eurocode revision provides a more conservative result. This is especially the case for beams with geometry such that the minimum compression field angle is limited and simultaneous yielding of the shearing reinforcement and crushing of the compression field cannot occur. However, results from current methods also provide unsatisfactory results for these cases, leaning towards unsafe estimations in some cases. (C) 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.