Jtam-A4.dvi JOURNAL OF THEORETICAL AND APPLIED MECHANICS 53, 2, pp. 371-381, Warsaw 2015 DOI: 10.15632/jtam-pl.53.2.371 THE INVESTIGATION OF THE STRENGTH REDUCTION FACTOR IN PREDICTING THE SHEAR STRENGTH Guray Arslan, Sema Noyan Alacali, Ali Sagiroglu Yildiz Technical University, Department of Civil Engineering,Esenler, Istanbul, Turkey e-mail: gurayarslan@gmail.com; semanoyal@gmail.com; alisagirogluktu@gmail.com Design codes propose to restrict the nominal probability of failure within specific target structural reliability levels using a load factor and a strength reduction factor. In the current ACI318Code, the strength reduction factorvaries from0.65 to 0.90,andthevalue considered in predicting the shear strength equals to 0.75. In this study, the change in the strength reduction factor in predicting the shear strength according to ACI318 has been investigated for different coefficients of variation of concrete compressive strength byusing the first-order secondmoment approach, and the strength reduction factor is proposed for the target values of failure probability. Keywords: reinforced concrete, beam, shear strength, reduction factor, target reliability 1. Introduction The safety of a structure can be explained as the probability that the structure will perform its purposes throughout its design lifetime. In order to provide certain reliability levels for structures, design codes use safety factors. Partial safety factors are to be evaluated for a given target reliability index (β).Thevalueofβ dependson the relative consequences of failure and the relative costs of safetymeasures. The range ofβ for flexural strength of reinforced concrete (RC) beams designed according to ACI318 was investigated by Mirza (1996). The resulting value of β is 3.1 (range 2.5-3.9). The target values of β were set in the study of Mirza (1996) at 3.0 and 3.25 for columns exhibiting tension and compression failures, respectively. MacGregor (1983) took as β =2.5-3 for tension failures and β =3-3.5 for compression failures. A higher value of β was assigned to members displaying compression failure, reflecting the increased danger due to sudden, brittle behavior of such members at the failure load. Beck et al. (2009) and Oliveira et al. (2008) noted that the target β of structures designed according toNBR8800 (2008) lies in the range from 2.3 to 4.5. TheAS5104 (2005) and ISO2394 (1998) suggest that the lifetime targetβ ranges from3.1 to 4.3 forultimate (strength) limit states design.According toVrouwenvelder (2002), the central value ofβ=4.2 (pF =1.33·10 −5) should be considered as the most common design situation, and the value of β =3.8 (pF =0.7 ·10 −5) is mentioned for a reference period of 50 years in the Eurocode. The target value of β in the studies of Hasofer and Lind (1974), Rackwitz and Fiessler (1978) andMadsen et al. (1986) was set at 4.1. ACI318 andASCE/SEI (2010) are based on semi-probabilistic approaches to design (Ribeiro and Diniz, 2013). According to the study of Nowak and Szerszen (2003) that is the basis of ACI318 calibration, the target β is 3.5 (range 3.4-3.6) for RC beams. In theACI318 (1995), the strength reduction factor for shear is 0.85. According to the ACI318 (2002, 2011), the strength reduction factor for shear is 0.75. According to TS500 (2000), the contribution of concrete to shear strength is obtained by reducing diagonal cracking strength with a safety factor of 0.8. 372 G. Arslan et al. Afirst-order secondmoment probabilistic analysis procedure is used to compute the strength reduction factor in predicting the shear strength of RC beams according to the current ACI318 (2011), Section 9.3. The change in the strength reduction factor against the coefficient of va- riation of concrete compressive strength (Vfc) and the failure probability (pF) is investigated through the database of 375 shear test results collected from 36 references. 2. Design recommendations for RC beams According to the ACI318, the nominal shear strength (νn) is derived from two components: concrete and stirrups. This relationship is given as follows νn = νc+νs (2.1) in which νs is the shear strength of stirrup based on yield and νc is the shear strength of con- crete, respectively. The shear strength of concrete consists of four mechanisms of shear transfer identified by the ASCE-ACI426 (1973) report as follows: the uncracked portion of the concrete, vertical components of the aggregate interlocking force in the cracked portion of concrete, dowel action of the longitudinal steel, and arch action. The shear strength of RC beams is given as follows νn = 1 6 √ fc+ρwfyw (2.2) in which ρw is the ratio of stirrups, fc and fyw are the compressive strength of concrete and yield strength of stirrup inMPa, respectively. In the ACI318, the strength design philosophy states that the design shear capacity of a member must exceed the shear demand as shown in Eq. (2.3) φνn ­ νu (2.3) in whichφ is the shear strength reduction factor and given as 0.75 inACI318 (2011) and 0.85 in ACI318 (1995). In this study, the change in the strength reduction factor considered inpredicting the shear strength according to the ACI318 (2011) is investigated and compared for different failure probabilities and coefficients of variation of concrete compressive strength. 3. Reliability analysis 3.1. Analysis method In probability theory, the capacity R and the load S involve different basic variables. Hence the performance function, Z =R−S = g(X1,X2, . . . ,Xn), contains uncertainties in all design variables. When the performance function equals to zero, Z = 0, it is called a failure surface. The safety or reliability is defined by the condition Z > 0 and therefore, failure byZ < 0. The calculation of probabilities of reliability or failure requires the knowledge of the joint probability distribution of all basic variables in the performance function. However, in many cases, these probabilitydistributionsare unavailable or difficult to obtain due togeneral lack of data.Besides, even though distributions of the variables are known, if the performance function is highly nonlinear, the evaluation of failure probability by numerical methods is difficult (Ranganathan, 1990; Ang and Tang, 1984). Because of these difficulties, the approximatemethods for evaluation of structural reliability have been improved. In these methods, the random variables are represented by their first and The investigation of the strength reduction factor... 373 second moments. In evaluating the first and second moments of the failure function, the first order approximation is used. That is why these methods are called first-order second moment methods. Therefore, this method is generally used by committees in calibrating codes for the evaluation of partial safety factors (Ranganathan, 1990). 3.2. Determination of partial safety factors In this study, thedetermination of the strength reduction factor has beendevelopedusing the first-order secondmomentmethod.The strength reduction factormay be called as partial safety factor in the reliability based design. Partial safety factors are to be evaluated for a given β. At the same time, β is the safetymeasure that corresponds to a given probability of failure. Hence, in the reliability based design, the problem of the partial safety factors is reverse. If x∗i is the design value of the original variableXi, the failure surface equation is defined as g(x∗1,x ∗ 2, . . . ,x ∗ n)= 0 i=1,2, . . . ,n (3.1) where x∗i(= γimXi) is the most probable failure point on the failure surface, and the determi- nation of x∗i requires an iterative solution. Thus, it is required to find the design point (γimXi) corresponding to the target β. The most general design format is to apply a safety factor on each of all design variables. The performance function must satisfy g(γ1mX1,γ2mX2, . . . ,γimXi)= 0 i=1,2, . . . ,n (3.2) The design point should be the most probable failure point. In the space of the reduced variates, themost probable failure point isx ′ ∗ i =−α ∗ iβ, and β is defined as the shortest distance from the failure surface to the origin. Sensitivity coefficient α∗i is defined by as (Ang and Tang, 1984) α∗i = ∂g ∂X′i [ n ∑ i=1 ( ∂g ∂X′i )2 ∗ ]−1/2 (3.3) The partial safety factors required for a given β are defined as γi(= x ∗ i/mXi). The original variables are given by x∗i = mXi(1−α ∗ iβVXi), in which mXi and VXi are the mean value and the variance coefficient of the original variableXi with normal distribution, respectively. VXi is the ratio of standard deviation (σXi) to the mean value (mXi). The partial safety factors are calculated as γi =(1−α ∗ iβVXi). In this study, it is assumed that the distributions of variables in the performance function are normal and lognormal. In lognormal distributions, mXi and σXi should be replaced by the equivalent normal mean mNXi and standard deviation σ N Xi . In addition, it is also assumed that the all variables are statistically independent (Ang and Tang, 1984). 3.3. Strength reduction factor The performance function g(X) for the shear failure mode is expressed as g(X) = γiνn−γjνu,exp (3.4) in which νn is the nominal shear strength, νu,exp is the experimental shear strength, γi and γj are the safety factors corresponding to the related variables. By calculating weighted averages of these factors (γi), the strength reduction factor φ, defined in Eq.(3.4) is determined. The change in the φ considered in predicting the shear strength according to the ACI318 against the diffe- rent Vfc (0.10,0.12,0.15,0.18) and pF (10 −7,10−6,10−5,10−4,10−3,10−2) has been investigated by using experimental studies available in the literature. 374 G. Arslan et al. 4. Uncertainties of random variables The uncertainties included in the prediction of shear strength aremodeled as random variables. Since there is no information about themeasurement sensivity in the experiments, the values of the coefficient of variation taken into account in the calculations are determined by considering the previous statistical studies. The coefficient of variation of concrete compressive strength (Vfc) under average construction quality control usually depends on the concrete strength and varies in between 0.10 and 0.21 through the literature. The Vfc was taken as 0.10 by Nowak and Szerszen (2003) and Ribeiro andDiniz (2013), 0.11 by Hao et al. (2010), 0.12 by Neves et al.(2008) and Soares et al. (2002), 0.13 by Val et al. (1997), 0.15 by Mirza (1996), Mirza et al. (1979), Mirza and MacGregor (1979a,b), 0.16 byVal andChernin (2009) andHosseinnezhad et al. (2000), 0.18 byEnright and Frangopol (1998) and Ramsay et al. (1979), 0.20 by Melchers (1999) and 0.21 by Ellingwood (1978). Although the reinforcement ratios depend on the structural dimensions, they are assumed to be statistically independent from each other and from the other random structural parameters. In the study of Hao et al. (2010), it was assumed that the coefficient of variation of stirrup ratio (Vρw) is 0.15, which is the value used in this study. The coefficient of variation of reinforcement strength (Vfy) was also reported by many rese- archers. Slightly different values were given by different researchers, where the Vfy ranges from 0.05 to 0.15. TheVfy was taken as 0.05 by JCSS (2000), 0.08 byVal et al. (1997), Hosseinnezhad et al. (2000) and Low andHao (2001), 0.06 by Soares et al. (2002), 0.08-0.11 byOstlund (1991), MacGregor et al. (1983), 0.12 byEnright andFrangopol (1998) and 0.15 byMirza (1996),Mirza et al. (1979), Mirza and MacGregor (1979a,b). The Vfy is taken as 0.10 in the present study. In the studies of Hognestad (1951) and Mirza (1996), it was assumed that the coefficient of variation of strength due to test procedure was 0.04, which is the value used in this study. 5. Investigation of the strength reduction factor in predicting the shear strength The distributions of main properties of the beams in the database of 375 shear test results (Adebar and Collins, 1996; Anderson and Ramirez, 1989; Angelakos et al., 2001; Bahl, 1968; Bresler and Scordelis, 1961; Bresler and Scordelis, 1966; Cladera and Mari, 2005, 2007; Collins andKuchma, 1999;Cucchiara et al., 2004;Elzanaty et al., 1986;Guralnick, 1960;Gonzalez, 2002; Haddadin et al., 1971; Johnson and Ramirez, 1989; Leonhardt and Walter, 1962; Karayiannis and Chalioris, 1999; Kong and Rangan, 1998; Krefeld and Thurston, 1966; Lee and Kim, 2008; Mattock andWang, 1984;McGormley et al., 1996;MphondeandFrantz, 1985;Placas andRegan, 1971; Palakas and Darwin, 1980; Rajagopalan and Ferguson, 1968; Swamy and Andriopoulos, 1974; Ozcebe et al., 1999; Roller and Russell, 1990; Sarzam and Al-Musawi, 1992; Shin et al., 1999; Tan et al., 1997; Xie et al., 1994; Yoon et al., 1996; Zararis and Papadakis, 1999; Zararis, 2003) are shown in Fig. 1. The frequency distribution of fc varies from 12MPa to 103MPa, so covers a wide range of RC properties. In this study, the normal strength concrete (NSC) is defined as concrete having compressive strength less than 55MPa, and high strength concrete (HSC) having compressive strength equal to or more than 55MPa. Only 5% of the NSC beam tests (14 of 281 tests) were conducted for fc ¬ 20MPa and 20% of the HSC beam tests (19 of 94 tests) were conducted for fc ­ 80MPa. It can be stated that the fc values are not equally distributed in the range from 45MPa to 75MPa. A large amount of beams is characterized by 30MPa for the NSC beams and 75MPa for the HSC beams. The investigation of the strength reduction factor... 375 Fig. 1. Data frequency distributions: fc, a/d, ρw and fyw The frequency distribution of shear span-to-depth ratio (a/d) varies from 2.5 to 7.5. It is worth noting that a/d values are not equally distributed in the range from 2.5 to 7.5 andmost of the beams are characterized by small a/d. The beams with a/d higher than 6 (a/d ­ 6) are limited for all (NSC and HSC) beams; further research is therefore required to verify the found pF . The frequency distribution of the stirrup yielding strength (fyw) varies from 179MPa to 840MPa. It isworthnoting thatfyw values arenot equally distributed in the range from300MPa to 500MPa.A large amount of beams is characterized by 300 and 500MPa. Thus, regarding the stirrup, these two values can be good representatives of typical yielding strengths of stirrups for existing buildings (300MPa) andmore recent ones (500MPa). The database is characterized by percentage of ρw that ranges from 0.040 to 1.750 with a large amount of beams characterized by 0.250. In order to determine a more accurate shear strength reduction factor for the shear design method, the change in the φ obtained from the analysis is compared in Table 1 for different values of Vfc and pF . φ decreases as β increases, and the reduction in the φ increases with Vfc. For givenVfc and pF , theφ for theHSCbeams are found to be greater than the one for theNSC beams, so it can be inferred that the φ for HSC beams is more safe than the one for the NSC beams. In the ACI318 (1995), the φ considered in predicting the shear strength equals to 0.85. It is indicated that this value corresponds to the target values of pF =10 −2 (β =2.33) and Vfc =0.10. In theACI318 (2002) andACI318 (2011), the factor of 0.85 was replaced by a factor of 0.75, which corresponds to the target values of pF = 10 −5 (β = 4.27) and Vfc = 0.10 for all beams. It is observed that this value is conservative for pF > 10 −5 and a variation coefficient of 0.10. Ninety seven percent of the beams have strengths that exceed 0.75 times the calculated strength. The effects of fc, a/d, ρw and fyw on the φ are discussed below. 376 G. Arslan et al. Table 1.Changing the average values of φ Vfc pF Beams 10−7 10−6 10−5 10−4 10−3 10−2 0.10 0.716 0.736 0.758 0.784 0.815 0.854 NSC (281 beams) 0.12 0.703 0.723 0.746 0.773 0.806 0.847 0.15 0.681 0.703 0.728 0.756 0.791 0.836 0.18 0.659 0.683 0.708 0.739 0.776 0.823 0.20 0.645 0.669 0.695 0.727 0.766 0.815 0.10 0.749 0.766 0.785 0.808 0.835 0.870 HSC (94 beams) 0.12 0.733 0.751 0.772 0.796 0.825 0.862 0.15 0.708 0.728 0.750 0.776 0.808 0.849 0.18 0.682 0.704 0.727 0.756 0.790 0.834 0.20 0.666 0.688 0.713 0.742 0.778 0.825 0.10 0.724 0.744 0.765 0.790 0.820 0.858 NSC and HSC (375 beams) 0.12 0.710 0.730 0.753 0.779 0.810 0.851 0.15 0.688 0.709 0.733 0.761 0.795 0.839 0.18 0.665 0.688 0.713 0.743 0.780 0.826 0.20 0.650 0.674 0.700 0.731 0.769 0.817 Fig. 2. Range of φ values determined using the evaluation database for β=4.27 and Vfc =0.10 Figures 2a and 3a show the variation of φ with fc for β = 4.27 (pF = 10 −5), Vfc = 0.10 and β = 2.33 (pF = 10 −2), Vfc = 0.10, respectively. The φ for the existing test data yields large scatter and is not influenced significantly by fc for all (NSC andHSC) beams. Figures 2b and 3b show the variation of φ with a/d for β = 4.27 (pF = 10 −5), Vfc = 0.10 and β = 2.33 (pF =10 −2), Vfc =0.10, respectively. The φ for the existing test data yields large scatter in the results for all (NSC and HSC) beams. 29% of the NSC beam tests (81 of 281 tests) and only The investigation of the strength reduction factor... 377 11% of the HSC beam tests (10 of 94 tests) were conducted for (a/d)­ 4.0. The corresponding φ of 13 of 81 NSC beams are less than 0.75 for pF = 10 −5, Vfc = 0.10 and the corresponding φ of 11 of 81 NSC beams are less than 0.85 for pF =10 −2, Vfc =0.10. The corresponding φ of HSC beams are higher than 0.75 for pF =10 −5, Vfc =0.10 and 0.85 for pF =10 −2, Vfc =0.10. Fig. 3. Range of φ values determined using the evaluation database for β=2.33 and Vfc =0.10 Figures 2c and 3c show the variation of φwith the ρw for β=4.27 (pF =10 −5), Vfc =0.10 and β = 2.33 (pF = 10 −2), Vfc = 0.10, respectively. 10% of the NSC beam tests (28 of 281 tests) were conducted for ρw ­ 0.5% and only 7% of the HSC beam tests (7 of 94 tests) were conducted for ρw ­ 0.5%. The corresponding φ of 28 NSC and 7 HSC beams are less than 0.75 for pF =10 −5, Vfc =0.10 and less than 0.85 for pF =10 −2, Vfc =0.10. It is observed that the φ decreases with increasing ρw for all beams. Figures 2d and 3d show the variation of φ with fyw for β = 4.27 (pF = 10 −5), Vfc = 0.10 and β = 2.33 (pF = 10 −2), Vfc = 0.10, respectively. The φ for existing test data yields large scatter in the results for all (NSC and HSC) beams. It can be stated that theφ values are not equally distributedwith respect to fc, a/d and fyw. Thebeamswith a/dhigher than 6 (a/d­ 6.0) are limited for all (NSCandHSC)beams; further research is therefore required to verify the found pF . 6. Conclusions The change in the shear strength reduction factor according to the ACI318 is investigated for different coefficients of variation and failureprobabilities.The following conclusions canbedrawn from the results of this study. • It is found thatφ of 0.75,which is a value recommendedby theACI318 (2002) andACI318 (2011), corresponds to the target values of pF =10 −5 (β=4.27) and Vfc =0.10, whereas φ of 0.85, which is a value recommended by the ACI318 (1995), corresponds to the target values of pF =10 −2 (β=2.33) and Vfc =0.10. 378 G. Arslan et al. • The values of φ for the considered beams are largely scattered and are not influenced significantly by fc, a/d and fyw. 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