Module 05
Shear, bond, anchorage, laps and torsion
The failures that are sudden. A truss you can derive, an empirical formula you cannot, and the reason a bar must be given length before it can be given a force.
What this module covers
- Explain why a diagonal crack forms, and why the failure is brittle
- Derive the variable-angle truss from equilibrium alone
- Choose a strut angle, and say what you are trading when you do
- Distinguish the empirical concrete term from the mechanical truss term
- Design links for a beam, and check the struts do not crush
- Derive the anchorage length from a force balance on one bar
- Curtail a bar correctly, accounting for both the shift and the anchorage
- Distinguish equilibrium torsion from compatibility torsion, and design for the first
Lessons
Diagonal tension, brittle failure, and why a beam without links gives no warning at all.
Start lesson →Once the web has cracked, the beam is a truss. Derive it by cutting, and the design equations fall out.
Start lesson →A bar can only be given a force over a length. Get that length wrong and the flexural design is worthless.
Start lesson →- 5.4
Torsion
The same truss, wrapped round a tube — and the one question you must answer before designing for it at all.
Start lesson →
Module checkpoint
Check what you have taken in
7 questions
Question 1
What is physically happening when a beam 'fails in shear'?
Question 2
A beam has bw = 300 mm, d = 450 mm, C30/37 (fcd = 17 N/mm²). At cot θ = 2.5, what is VRd,max, in kN?
Question 3
For a beam with z = 405 mm, fywd = 434.8 N/mm² and cot θ = 2.5, what shear can H8 two-leg links at 175 mm centres carry, in kN? Take Asw = 100.5 mm².
Question 4
A beam needs 250 kN of shear resistance. VRd,c is 95 kN. How much shear must the links be designed for?
Question 5
An H20 bar in C30/37, good bond conditions, stressed to 435 N/mm² with fbd = 3.04 N/mm². What is lb,rqd, in mm?
Question 6
A beam has z = 495 mm and is designed at cot θ = 2.5. What is the shift distance al that the bending moment diagram must be displaced by, in mm?
Question 7
Two beams are identical except that one has d = 250 mm and the other d = 1000 mm. Which has the higher shear STRESS capacity vRd,c, all else equal?