Author(s)

Nawab Ali Lakho, Muhammad Auchar Zardari^*

Department of Civil Engineering, Quaid-e-Awam University of Engineering, Science and Technology, Nawabshah, Pakistan.

For low cost houses in Pakistan, Reinforced Baked Clay (RBC) is considered to be a potential construction material as a substitute of Reinforced Cement Concrete (RCC). Deflection and cracks are important parameters for design of beams in a building. However, for RBC beams it is still unknown that how the deflection and crack width could be controlled by increasing ratio of reinforcement. This study investigates the effect of ratio of reinforcement on deflection and cracking behaviour of baked clay beams. The results show that by increasing area of reinforcement by 50% in baked clay beams: 1) deflection was decreased to 2.5 times, and 2) crack width was reduced to three times.

Baked Clay, Deflection, Crack Width, Reinforcement, Ultimate Load, Low Cost Houses

Lakho, N. and Zardari, M. (2016) Effect of Reinforcement on Deflection and Cracks in Baked Clay Beams. Engineering, 8, 684-690. doi: 10.4236/eng.2016.810062.