THE SHEAR STRENGTH OF 50 MPA CONCRETE BEAMS MADE USING RECYCLED CONCRETE COARSE AGGREGATES

Five 50 MPa longitudinally reinforced beams were loaded in a four-point testing setup to study their shear behavior. The beams were three meters long, and their cross section was 150 mm by 420 mm. The testing region did not contain stirrups. The beams were shallow, with a span to depth ratio of 3. All beams were similar except for the percentages of replacement of natural coarse aggregates with recycled concrete coarse aggregates, which were 0%, 10%, 20%, 35% and 100%. The results have shown that the replacement of natural coarse aggregates with recycled ones had a negligible effect on the ultimate shear strength. However, the results on the modulus of elasticity showed a reduction of less than 10% in beams with the use of recycled aggregates.