Several laboratory experiments have demonstrated the effectiveness of steel fibers in substituting the minimum code required shear reinforcement in beams, particularly in precast high performance concrete structures. Despite the large number of experimental results available, only a few numerical studies have been so far published concerning fibre reinforced concrete structures. The behavior of full scale steel fibre reinforced concrete beams is herein analyzed using the FE code VecTor2, based on the Modified Compression Field Theory (MCFT), developed at the University of Toronto, and suitably adapted for steel fibre reinforcement. The numerical model is validated against the experimental results obtained on full scale FRC beams and is shown to adequately simulate the strength, stiffness, ductility, crack pattern development and failure modes of all beams tested, even if lightly reinforced or with fibres only. The results allow a better understanding of fiber reinforced concrete structures under shear loading and will be investigated to suggest a new formulation for identifying the shear contribution of fibres.
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