reinforced concrete beams with hexagonal chicken wire under monotonic and cyclic loading

Experimental investigations were conducted to study the effect of wrapped hexagonal chicken wire (hcw) on the flexural performance of reinforced concrete beams. eleven specimens have been constructed and loaded under the four-point flexural monotonic and cyclic loads. test parameters included the transverse rebars spacing and the number of hcw layers. the load–displacement curve, deformation capacity, modulus of rupture, ductility, energy dissipation and failure modes of specimens with hcw confinement was compared with the controlling (non-hcw) specimen. it was observed that in hcw specimens, more cracks spread along with the specimens while the depth of cracks was reduced, resulting in a higher contribution of concrete in energy dissipation. confinement of rc beam by hcw increased the ultimate deformation and maximum strength of specimens up to 18% and 10%, respectively, compared to the controlling beam. improvements in beam confining by hcw prevented the brittle collapse of the rc beams and provided additional residual capacity after the yielding point. hcw confinement of an rc beam is easy to set up and only adds about 2% to the cost of the manufacturing process. test results demonstrated that the specimens confined by two layers of hcw and had lower space between the transverse rebars had much more energy dissipation (32.5% enhancement compared to non-hcw specimen) and bore much more ultimate deflection at the end of the test. according to the findings of the current study, utilizing hcw is a cost-efficient option to improve the behavior of the rc beams.