Reliability-based assessment of the partial factor for shear design of fibre reinforced concrete members without shear reinforcement

Fibre reinforced concrete (FRC) is increasingly used for structural purposes owing to its many benefits, especially in terms of improved overall sustainability of FRC structures relative to traditional reinforced concrete (RC). Such increased structural use of FRC requires safe and reliable models for its design in ultimate limit states (ULS). Particularly important are models for shear strength of FRC members without shear resistance due to the potential of brittle failure. The fib Model Code 2010 contains a model for the shear strength of FRC members without shear reinforcement and the same partial factor accepted for RC structures is accepted for FRC elements. This approach, however, is potentially on the unsafe side since the uncertainties of some design-determining mechanical properties of FRC (i.e., residual flexural strength) are larger than those for RC. Therefore, in this study, a comprehensive reliability-based calibration of the partial factor γ_c for the shear design of FRC members without shear reinforcement according to the fib Model Code 2010 model is performed. As a first step, the model error δ is assessed on 332 experimental results. Then, a parametric analysis of 700 cases is performed and a relationship between the target failure probability β_R and γ_c is established. The results demonstrate that the current model together with the prescribed value of γ_c = 1.50 does not comply with the failure probabilities accepted for the different consequences of failure of FRC members over a 50-year service life. Therefore, changes to the shear resistance model are proposed in order to achieve the target failure probabilities.

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