ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Mater.
Sec. Structural Materials
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmats.2025.1663457
Experimental Investigations on In-plane and Out-of-plane Flexural Performance of UHPC Beams with Wet Joints
Provisionally accepted
- 1Nanning Transportation Investment Group Co., Ltd., Nanning, China
- 2Hualan Design (Group) Co., Ltd., Nanning, China
- 3Nanning Second Ring Expressway Co., Ltd., Nanning, China
- 4Guangxi University, Nanning, China
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Prefabricated bridges have emerged as a significant trend in modern bridge construction. To study the inplane and out-of-plane flexural performance of ultra-high-performance concrete (UHPC) beams with wet joints, inplane and out-of-plane specimens with different curing methods for UHPC wet joints were designed and fabricated. The cracking loads, peak loads, and crack development of the specimens were recorded and analyzed. The test results revealed that all specimens experienced flexural failure with damage to the normal section. Moreover, the flexural capacity of the jointed specimens reached a minimum of 91% of the complete specimen's flexural capacity. The joints influenced the cracking behavior of in-plane specimens but had minimal impact on out-of-plane specimens. Chiseling, increasing steel fiber contents and welding longitudinal steel bars with short steel bars reduced structural damage and decrease in stiffness. The different curing methods for UHPC at the joints have little impact on stiffness and flexural capacity of the joint specimens but played a positive role in improving ductility. Finally, a calculation method for flexural capacity considering the contribution of web steel bars is provided.
Keywords: Bridge Engineering, Flexural capacity, Experimental Research, UHPC, Wet joint
Received: 10 Jul 2025; Accepted: 07 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Chen, Liu, Wu, Liu, Han and Yan. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Banfu Yan, Guangxi University, Nanning, China
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