Flexural behavior of precast reinforced concrete beams with steel end connectors

Two innovative precast reinforced concrete beams with steel end connectors at both ends were proposed to reduce the complexities and construction difficulties of traditional connections between steel columns or composite columns and RC beams. Three full-scale specimens including the two innovative beams and one conventional RC beam were tested to obtain their flexural behaviors. The results indicate that the failure mechanism and deformation behavior of the two innovative beams are similar to the conventional one when subjected to a third-point concentrated loading. The cracking moments and ultimate moments obtained from the test agree well with those given in the current concrete code, making it feasible to predict the flexural capacities of the two innovative beams using current concrete code. The slipping between concrete and the two steel joints were measured and the results were small enough to be negligible. The steel joints show an elastic performance all the time until the failure of the beams. Finite element models were developed using ABAQUS to simulate the flexural behaviors of the two innovative beams, and the FE results have a good agreement with the experimental results. Finally, the two innovative beams were respectively cast into a frame model to examine their flexural behaviors in real structures, based on which practical suggestions were proposed for the application of the two innovative precast reinforced concrete beams.