In this study, four-point bending tests were conducted on reinforced concrete (RC) beams with non-contact lap splices in the main rebars to investigate the effect of transverse rebars spacing on joint performance. The non-contact lap splices were located in the equi-bending moment region with main rebar spacings equal to five times the diameter of the main bars. Three kinds of transverse rebars spacings and a case without transverse rebars were examined. The results show that transverse rebars can improve the load-carrying capacity of RC beams with noncontact lap splices. However, it confirmed that when the transverse rebars spacing exceeds the main rebars spacing in a non-contact lap splice joint, the performance improvement is limited. In addition, the effective anchorage length can be conservatively estimated as the basic anchorage length minus the main rebars spacing.
