Factor of Transverse Rebar Affecting Crack Behaviors of Concrete Element Subjected to Bending

Crack behavior of reinforced concrete (hereinafter RC) member, includes RC-beam and RC-slab, is the one of major parts in design for the serviceability limit state. It has a significant influence on durability and serviceability. However, in the primary factors which affect crack behaviors, influence of transverse rebar was considered and investigated rarely by recent codes and researchers, although its effect is obvious. In order to investigate the influence of transverse rebar, a large number of experimental and theoretical work for RC-slabs subjected to uniaxial, biaxial tension and bending have been performed at the Institute for structural Engineering of the University of the German Armed Forces Munich from 2001. The recent test results, which focus on the influence of transverse rebar on crack behaviours for RC slab-strip, have been described and analysed in this paper. These test results indicate that crack behaviours, in which first and finial crack pattern, crack direction, crack depth and width, would be influenced once the positions of transverse and longitudinal rebar were shifted. Furthermore, other factors of transverse rebar will be performed in the further with the financial support from German Research Foundation (DFG). These results will be regarded as a foundation of further theoretical analysis.