Abstract: Six reinforced concrete beams with surface reinforcement and HRBF500 longitudinal reinforcement were tested to investigate their cracking characteristics,and the effects of surface reinforcement on crack spacing and crack width were analyzed.The test results show that the surface reinforcement can reduce crack width effectively,such as the short-time maximum crack width can be reduced by 35% to 65%.Referring the relative provisions in European code EN 1992-1-1:2004,the recommendations on detailing design of surface reinforcements and the reducing ratio of crack width are proposed.