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Behavior of Reinforced Concrete Membrane Elements subjected to Bi-directional Shear Loads

The true behaviour of many complex reinforced concrete structures involves interaction between in-plane and out-of-plane stresses, an issue often ignored in design. In this paper, the first interaction diagram for concrete elements subjected to bi-directional shear was developed. To accomplish this task, the authors upgraded the universal panel tester machine available at the University of Houston, USA by installing additional actuators in the out of plane direction. This state of the art equipment was later used to conduct experiments on representative concrete specimens. Strong interaction between in-plane and out-of-plane shear loads was observed.