Impact Response of Reinforced Concrete Beam and Its Analytical Evaluation

This paper examines the impact responses of reinforced concrete (RC) beams through an experimental study and presents an analytical model developed to predict the maximum midspan deflection and maximum impact load, which aids as an important performance index to evaluate the damage levels of RC beams when subjected to impact loadings. The experimental study involves a drop hammer impact test and investigates the influence of drop height and the effect of the amount of longitudinal steel reinforcement contributes to the response of RC beams. The RC beam specimens used in the experiment comprised of under-reinforced sections provided with sufficient amount of transverse reinforcements to allow for an overall…