Abstract: “The current American Concrete Institute (ACI), Canadian Standard Associate (CSA) and CEB-FIP code provisions suggest that deep beams should be designed using the strut-and-tie model approach. This paper investigates the validity of the current ACI, CSA and CEB-FIP code provisions on the shear strength of simply supported reinforced concrete deep beams by comparing them with the shear strength equations proposed by Hong et al. [1] The comparison shows that the current ACI and CEB-FIP design codes can provide reasonable shear strength estimates that approximately correspond to the 70 to 80 % of the predictions by the shear strength equations. In contrast, the current CSA code relatively underestimates the shear strength for cases with large shear-span ratio”

Keywords: strut-and-tie model; concrete deep beam; shear strength; concrete plasticity.