Proceedings of the

International Conference on Advances in Civil Engineering

Materials and Processes, ICACEMAP 2015
Coimbatore Institute of Technology, India.
7-9 January 2015
Paper ID:s-039

ICACEMAP 2015
CIT, INDIA

ANALYTICAL STUDIES OF THE BEHAVIOUR OF

REINFORCED CONCRETE BEAM WITH OPENINGS
HEMANTH YADAV.M1, NATARAJAN.C2
1

Post Graduate, Civil Engineering Department, National Institute of technology, Tiruchirapalli, Tamil Nadu, India,
Email: hemanthyadav3@gmail.com
2
Professor, Civil Engineering Department, National Institute of technology, Tiruchirapalli, Tamil Nadu, India,
Email: nataraj@nitt.edu

Abstract: Finite element software has been used to simulate simply supported RC beams consisting of openings with
different shapes with varying diameters at different locations in 3-D nonlinear finite element method. The inherent
assumption is that there is full displacement compatibility between the reinforcement and the concrete and no bond
slippage occurs. In this paper a number of models of simply supported RC beams with different shapes of opening
with varying diameters at different locations are loaded monotonically with two incremental concentrated loads.
And the study was made in terms of ultimate failure load, maximum deflection .From the results, it could be
concluded that the ultimate load carrying capacity of the RC beam at shear zone with opening was maximum
reduction but at flexure zone, it showed minimum reduction. Rectangular opening increased the ultimate load
reduction than square opening by (4%), while the circular opening reduced the ultimate load reduction than square
opening by (8%).RC rectangular beams with circular openings of diameter less than 44% of the depth of beam has
no effect on the ultimate load capacity but circular openings with diameter more than 44% reduces the ultimate load
capacity.
Keywords: RC beams; web opening effect; shear and flexural behaviour; rectangular opening; circular opening;
finite element method; load vs. deflection curve; modelling.
1. Introduction:
Beam openings may be of different shapes, sizes and
are generally located close to the supports where shear
is dominant. In practical life it is quite often use to
provide convenient passage of environmental services
which reduce the story heights of buildings and weight
of concrete beams as it improves the demand on the
supporting frame both under gravity loading and
seismic excitation which results in major cost saving.
Openings should be positioned on the concrete beams to
provide chords with sufficient concrete area for
developing ultimate compression block in flexure and
adequate depth for providing effective shear
reinforcement [1]. Hanson (1969) tested a typical joist
floor i.e. a series of longitudinally RC T-beams
representing square and circular openings in the web
and found that an opening located adjacent to the center
stub (support) produced no reduction in strength [2].
The test data reported by Somes and Corley (1974)
indicated that when a small opening (0.25 times the
depth of the beam) is introduced in the web of a beam
which is unreinforced in shear, the mode of failure
remains essentially the same as that of a solid beam [3].
Salam (1977) investigated perforated beams of

rectangular cross section under two symmetrical point

loads [4]. Siao and Yap (1990) stated that the beams fail
prematurely by sudden formation of a diagonal crack in
the compression chord when no additional
reinforcement is provided in the members near the
opening (chord members) [5]. Mansur et al. (1991)
tested eight RC continuous beams, each containing a
large transverse opening and found an increase in depth
of opening led to a reduction in collapse load. Mansur
(1998) discussed about the effects of transverse opening
on the behavior and strength of RC beams under
predominant shear and stated that opening represents a
source of weakness and the failure plane always passes
through the opening, except when the opening is very
close to the support so as to bypass the potential
inclined failure plane.
2.1. General Information:
2.1.1. Dimension :( Fig. 1)
Reinforced concrete beam: 120x 2000 x 250
Steel plates at loading point: 120 x 100 x 10
Steel plates at Support: 120 x 50 x 10

2.1.2. Steel reinforcement :( Fig. 2)

Top rebar: 210mm
Bottom rebar: 212mm
Stirrup: 2 legged 8 mm @ 150 mm c/c

Fig. 1: Reinforced concrete beam (Dimensions are in mm)

2.2.2. Steel Plate:

SOLID45 is used for the 3-D modelling of steel
plate. The element is defined by eight nodes having
three degrees of freedom at each node i.e. translations in
the nodal x, y and z directions. The element has
plasticity, creep, swelling, stress stiffening, large
deflection and large strain capabilities [6]. Steel plate
was assumed to be linear elastic material. An elastic
modulus equal to 200000 MPa and Poissons ratio of
0.3 was used.
2.2.3. Reinforcing Bar:
LINK8 is defined by two nodes which has used for
the modelling of reinforcing bar. The 3-D spar element
is a uniaxial tension-compression element with three
degrees of freedom at each node: translations in the
nodal x, y and z directions. As in a pin-jointed structure,
no bending of the element is considered. Plasticity,
creep, swelling, stress stiffening and large deflection
capabilities are included [6]. Reinforcing bars was
assumed to be both linear elastic and bilinear inelastic
material. Yield strength of longitudinal reinforcements
and stirrups were 360 MPa and 240 MPa respectively.
Poissons ratio of 0.3 was used.

Fig. 2: Cross-section of reinforced concrete beam (Dimensions are

in mm)

2.2. Element Types and Material Properties:

2.2.1. Concrete:
SOLID65 is used for the 3-D modelling of concrete.
The element is defined by eight nodes having three
degrees of freedom at each node i.e. translations in the
nodal x, y and z directions. The most important aspect
of this element is the treatment of nonlinear material
properties [6]. The concrete is capable of cracking (in
three orthogonal directions), crushing, plastic
deformation and creep. Concrete was assumed to be
both linear elastic and multilinear inelastic material.
Compressive strength of concrete was 30 MPa and
tensile strength was assumed 9% of concrete
compressive strength. Poissons ratio of 0.2 was used.

Fig. 4: Reinforcement Details

2.3. Loading and Boundary Condition:

To ensure that the model behave the same way as the
experimental beam boundary conditions were needed to
be applied at nodes in the supports. The supports were
modeled to create roller and hinged supports. The force
P was applied on all nodes through the entire centerline
of the steel plates.
.

Fig. 5: Typical view of beam model

Fig. 3: Model of ANSYS concrete beam

2.4. Meshing:
In this research a convergence study was carried out
to determine an appropriate mesh density. Various mesh

sizes were examined in ANSYS. The ultimate load was

obtained for each mesh size is tabulated in Table 1.
From this table, it can be observed that the obtained
ultimate load for mesh size 40mm (75023 N) is nearest
to the ultimate load of experimental beam (79800 N)
[7]. For this reason, the mesh size equal to 40 mm was
chosen for this study.
Table 1: Different mesh sizes and corresponding ultimate loads

Mesh Size
(mm)
Ultimate
load (N)

Mesh 40

Mesh 70

Mesh 100

75023

73568

72154

2.5 Specimens:
Openings were at three different zones; above
support, flexural zone which is between two
concentrated points load, and shear zone which is
between concentrated point load to and close support. In
order to make it easy to recognize the description of
each beam, abbreviation of words had been used. So
alphabetic letter N will refer to the solid beam without
opening; and "C, S and R" will refer to the type of
opening that is circular, square and rectangular,
respectively. SH, S and F will refer to opening zone
that is shear, above support and flexural zones,
respectively.

Table 2: Different types of models used in this study

Beam Specimen

Opening Type

BN
BC-SH-1
BC-SH-2
BC-SH-3
BC-SH-4
BC-SH-5
BC-SH-6
BC-SH-7
BC-SH-8
BC-S-1
BC-S-2
BC-S-3
BC-F-1
BC-F-2
BC-F-3
BS-SH-1
BS-SH-2
BS-SH-3
BS-S-1
BS-S-2
BS-S-3
BS-F-1
BS-F-2
BS-F-3
BR-SH-1
BR-S-1
BR-F-1

====
Circular
Circular
Circular
Circular
Circular
Circular
Circular
Circular
Circular
Circular
Circular
Circular
Circular
Circular
Square
Square
Square
Square
Square
Square
Square
Square
Square
Rectangular
Rectangular
Rectangular

Opening Size
(mm)
====
140
130
120
110
100
80
60
40
140
80
40
140
80
40
125
80
40
125
80
40
125
80
40
80140 (h b)
80140 (h b)
80140 (h b)

%H

Zone

====
0.56
0.52
0.48
0.44
0.40
0.32
0.24
0.16
0.56
0.32
0.16
0.56
0.32
0.16
0.50
0.32
0.16
0.5
0.32
0.16
0.50
0.32
0.16
0.32
0.32
0.32

====
Shear
Shear
Shear
Shear
Shear
Shear
Shear
Shear
Above Support
Above Support
Above Support
Flexure
Flexure
Flexure
Shear
Shear
Shear
Above Support
Above Support
Above Support
Flexure
Flexure
Flexure
Shear
Above Support
Flexure

3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION:

The results are summarized in Table 3. The table
shows ultimate failure load (Pu), maximum deflection
(max) and failure modes for all the beam specimens. It
was observed that solid beam (BN) deformed less than
some beams with circular opening. The deflections of
these beams were more both near the opening due to
reduction of stiffness of the beam.
3.1 Effect of circular opening sizes at shear zone:
To study the effect of different sizes for circular
opening, the position of the applied load was kept
constant and the distance from the support to the
opening for both sides of the beam was taken as 300
mm. Figs 6 and 7 show comparison of beam specimens
in this section. The results showed there is a slight
difference between beams with opening and control
beam till opening size of 100 mm (0.4H). Increasing
opening size than 100 mm (0.4H), the ultimate load

decreased significantly. So the opening with size less

than (0.4H) was considered as small opening; otherwise,
was considered as large opening.
3.2 Effect of square opening sizes at different zones:
To study the effect of square opening sizes, sizes of
40, 80 and 140 mm at different zones was investigated.
Figs. 8 and 9 show the comparison of beam specimens
in this section. The results showed that providing a
square opening of 40 mm (0.16H) caused average
reduction in ultimate load about (9%), while size of 80
mm (0.32H) caused average reduction about (19%) but
a rectangular opening caused average reduction about
(35%). When opening located at the shear zone causes
sharp decrease in the ultimate load about (38%) and
when opening is located above the supports the average
reduction was about (18%) but at flexure zone showed
the minimum effect where the average reduction was
(6%).

Table 3: Ultimate load and deflection for the specimens

Beam Specimen
BN
BC-SH-1
BC-SH-2
BC-SH-3
BC-SH-4
BC-SH-5
BC-SH-6
BC-SH-7
BC-SH-8
BC-S-1
BC-S-2
BC-S-3
BC-F-1
BC-F-2
BC-F-3
BS-SH-1
BS-SH-2
BS-SH-3
BS-S-1
BS-S-2
BS-S-3
BS-F-1
BS-F-2
BS-F-3
BR-SH-1
BR-S-1
BR-F-1

Pu (kN)
75.02
32.43
43.72
55.45
67.22
73.68
74.62
74.78
74.98
45.44
74.28
74.68
69.31
74.60
74.72
25.24
49.78
64.83
52.18
63.88
71.09
68.48
70.92
72.89
46.11
60.44
69.43

max (mm)
28.80
15.11
19.36
23.63
27.77
30.44
29.61
29.00
28.65
21.48
28.92
29.64
31.56
29.87
29.01
11.39
19.20
24.20
22.60
24.80
26.00
28.99
27.03
27.40
18.03
23.58
26.06

Failure Mode
Flexure
Shear
Shear
Shear
Flexure
Flexure
Flexure
Flexure
Flexure
Shear
Flexure
Flexure
Flexure
Flexure
Flexure
Shear
Shear
Flexure
Flexure
Flexure
Flexure
Flexure
Flexure
Flexure
Shear
Flexure
Flexure

Deflection(mm)

3.3 Effect of different opening shapes at different

zones:
To study the effect of different opening shapes, size
of 80 mm at different zones was investigated. Figs. 10
and 11 show the comparison of beam specimens in this
section. The results showed that providing a circular
opening caused average reduction in ultimate load about
(1%), while a square opening caused average reduction
about (19%) but a rectangular opening caused average
reduction about (23%). When opening located at the
shear zone causes sharp decrease in the ultimate load
about (25%) and when opening is located above the
supports the average reduction was about (13%) but at
flexure zone showed the minimum effect where the
average reduction was (5%).

35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0

28.8

27.77

30.44 29.61 29
28.65

23.63
19.36
15.11

beams
Fig. 7: Effect of circular opening size on deflection

71.0968.4870.9272.89
63.88
52.18

64.83

60

49.78

40

25.24

20
0

3.5 Comparison between square opening and rectangular

opening of same height:
In this part square openings of 80mm in height and rectangular
openings with same height were studied. Figs. 14 and 15

Beams
Fig. 6: Effect of circular opening size on ultimate failure load.

28.9927.03 27.4

BS-F-3

11.39

BN

19.2

24.2 22.6 24.8 26

BS-F-2

20

28.8

BS-F-1

43.72
32.43

35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0

BS-S-3

55.45

60
40

73.68 74.62 74.78 74.98

BS-SH-3

67.22

BS-SH-2

80 75.02

Fig. 8: Effect of square opening at different zones on ultimate

failure load

Deflection(mm)

Ultimate Load (KN)

The results showed that providing an opening, a rectangular

opening caused reduction in ultimate load about (3-4%) more
than square opening.

BS-SH-1

show the comparison of beam specimens of this section.

Beams

BS-S-2

providing a square opening caused reduction in ultimate load

about (8%) more than circular opening. May be the reason
behind that reduction in square opening is that the existing
orthogonal corners caused more stress concentration at these
corners. Sudden change in the dimension of cross section
leaded to high stress concentration at the corners of square
opening that may lead to undesirable cracks.

80 75.02

BS-S-1

Figs. 12 and 13 show the comparison of beam

specimens of this section. The results showed that

Ultimate Load (KN)

3.4 Comparison between circular opening and equivalent

area of square opening:
In this part circular opening of 140 mm in diameter and square
opening of 125 mm in height with same area were studied.

Beams
Fig. 9: Effect of square opening at different zones on
Deflection

Deflection(mm)

BR-F-1

BR-S-1

BR-SH-1

BS-F-2

BS-S-2

BS-SH-2

BC-F-2

BC-S-2

BC-SH-6

BN

Ultimate load (kn)

80 75.0274.6274.28 74.6
70.92
69.43
63.88
70
60.44
60
49.78
46.11
50
40
30
20
10
0

35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0

28.8

15.11
11.39

BN

Beams

24.8

27.03

80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0

75.02 74.6 69.43

49.78 46.11

Beams

Beams

Fig. 14: Effect of width of opening on ultimate failure load.

75.02

32.43

BN

BC-SH-1

25.24

Deflection(mm)

Ultimate load(Kn)

Fig. 11: Effect of opening shapes at different zones on Deflection.

80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0

63.88 60.44

BR-F-1

BR-S-1

BR-SH-1

BS-F-2

18.03

BS-S-2

BS-SH-2

BC-F-2

BC-S-2

19.2

26.06
23.58

BS-SH-1

Fig. 13: Effect of equivalent area opening shapes on deflection.

Ultimate load(KN)

28.8 29.6128.9229.87

BC-SH-6

35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0

BN

Deflection ( mm)

Fig. 10: Effect of opening shapes at different zones on ultimate

failure load.

BC-SH-1
Beams

35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0

28.8 29.87

26.06 24.8
23.58
19.2 18.03

BS-SH-1

Beams

Fig. 12: Effect of equivalent area opening shapes on ultimate

failure load.

Beams

Fig. 15: Effect of width of opening on Deflection.

3.6. Further Research:

1. Studying strengthening opening by web
reinforcement.
2. Studying strengthening opening by new materials as
steel fiber or FRP laminates and different
configurations.
3. Study behavior of deep beam with openings using
different concrete types such as high strength concrete.
4. CONCLUSIONS:
Based on the results of investigation, it could be
concluded that:
1. The location of openings has a large effect, where this
effect is the largest when openings location is at shear
zone and a small effect when openings location is at
flexure zone, so the best place for the location of
opening in these beams is in middle of a beam.
2. Circular opening is the best shape of opening that
showed the least reduction in ultimate load.
3. In RC beams with small opening at flexure zone, the
maximum reduction in ultimate load was about (1.5%).
4. In RC beams with large opening at flexure zone,
excessive flexural cracks were found at the tension zone
around the openings. The failure mode was in flexure.
Providing large opening in RC beam decreased the
ultimate load about (10% max.). However, in terms of
deflection, the beam deflection increased by (11% max.)
more than the control beam.
5. In RC beams with small opening at shear zone, the
maximum reduction in ultimate load was about (2.5%).

6. In RC beams with large opening at shear zone,

excessive shear cracks were found around the openings.
The failure mode was in shear. Providing large opening
in RC beam decreased the ultimate load about (64%
max.). However, in terms of deflection, the beam
deflection decreased by (57% max.) more than the
control beam.
4. References:
[1] Amiri, S., R. Masoudnia, Investigation of the
Opening Effects on the Behavior of Concrete Beams
Without Additional Reinforcement in Opening Region
Using Fem Method, Australian Journal of Basic and
Applied Sciences, 5(5),2011, 617-624.
[2] Hanson, J.M., Square openings in webs of
continuous joists, Portland Cement Association, 1969,
pp: l-14.
[3] Somes, N.F. and W.G. Corley, Circular openings in
webs of continuous beams, American Concrete Institute,
Detroit, MI, 1974, pp: 359-398.
[4] Salam, S.A., Beams with openings under different
stress conditions, Conference on Our World in Concrete
and Structures, Singapore, 25-26 Aug, 1977, pp: 259267.
[5] Siao, W.B. and S.F. Yap, Ultimate behavior of
unstrengthen large openings made in existing concrete
beams, Journal of the Institution of Engineers, 30(3),
1990, 51-57.
[6] ANSYS, ANSYS Users Manual Release 11,
ANSYS, Inc.
[7] Saeed Ahmed Al-Sheikh, Flexural Behavior Of Rc
Beams With Opening,Concrete Research Letters,Egypt,
5 (2) June 2014.