Experimental Studies to Demonstrate the Effect of Clamping Reinforcement on Shear Strength of GPC Adopting Push-Off Specimens

Mechanical properties of GPC are different compared over NSC; this is due to change in cracking behaviour under the application of load. Compressive strength, flexural strength, modulus of elasticity and in-plane shear strength are the important mechanical properties to be understood before it is used in practice. It has been observed that literatures available on in-plane shear strength of GPC are limited. The experimental investigation carried out in the present study is to study the in-plane shear strength of normal strength concrete (NSC) and geo polymer concrete (GPC) using push-off specimens. The grade of concrete and height of shear plane used are M30 and 100 mm, respectively. Dimensions of push-off specimen were 150 × 150 × 260 mm with two rectangular notches of 10 mm thick was cut, 100 mm apart along the longitudinal axis of loading and at equidistance from mid-depth. A total of 48 push-off specimens were tested (24 in each NSC and GPC, respectively), six push-off specimens with zero, one, two and three bars, respectively, crossing the shear plane. It was observed from experimental results that as the number of bars across shear plane increased the shear stress increased and in-plane shear strength of GPC was higher than NSC.