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Environmental awareness motivates researchers worldwide to perform studies of natural fibre reinforced polymer composites, as they come with many advantages and are primarily sustainable. The present study aims at evaluating the mechanical characteristics of natural woven jute fibre reinforced polymer (FRP) composite subjected to three different pretreatments, alkali, benzyl chloride, and lastly heat treatment. It was concluded that heat treatment is one of the most suitable treatment methods for enhancing mechanical properties of jute FRP. Durability studies on Jute FRP pertaining to some common environmental conditions were also carried out such as effect of normal water and thermal aging on the tensile strength of jute FRP followed by fire flow test. The heat treated woven jute FRP composites were subsequently used for flexural strengthening of reinforced concrete beams in full and strip wrapping configurations. The study includes the effect of flexural strengthening provided by woven jute FRP, study of different failure modes, load deflection behavior, effect on the first crack load, and ultimate flexural strength of concrete beams strengthened using woven jute FRP subjected to bending loads. The study concludes that woven jute FRP is a suitable material which can be used for flexural upgradation of reinforced concrete beams.

Abstract-Many of the existing reinforced concrete structures throughout the world are in urgent need of rehabilitation, repair or reconstruction because of deterioration due to various factors like corrosion, lack of detailing, failure of bonding between beamcolumn joints, increase in service loads etc. FRP composite has been accepted as a promising substitute for repairing and in incrementing the strength of RCC structures. During the last decade there has been a renewed interest in the natural fibre as a substitute for conventional FRP materials such as glass fibres and carbon fibres, motivated by potential advantages of weight saving, lower raw material price, and 'thermal recycling' or the ecological advantages of using resources which are renewable, also natural fibres are sustainable materials. Among the various natural fibres, Bamboo fibre reinforced composite is of particular interest as these composites have high impact strength besides having moderate tensile and flexural properties. Here a nonlinear finite element analysis is carried out in order to evaluate the performance of Bamboo fibres in structural retrofitting by retrofitting a Plain Concrete Block by using Bamboo fibre reinforced polymer. It is seen that the strengthened specimens exhibit significant increase in strength, stiffness, and stability as compared to controlled specimens.

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Existing structures require repair and strengthening owing to degradation caused by incorrect design and construction, environmental impacts, or structural upgradation to meet new seismic design standards or to correct execution problems that occurred during construction. These strengthening requirements can be satisfied by a variety of strengthening techniques. The creation of a fibre-reinforced polymer (FRP) composite system offers a new design method for the strengthening of existing structures. In this study, posttensioned beams are strengthened by using sustainable materials such as natural jute fibre-reinforced polymer (FRP) composites. The performance of these composite systems in the flexural strengthening of posttensioned beams was used to assess their effectiveness. Consequential result for longitudinal reinforcement throughout the length of the beam for flexural strengthening was evaluated. Flexural performance, crack width, ductility, and load-deflection relationship study of control beams (Scheme A) and retrofitted beams (Schemes B and C) under different wrappings were considered in the investigation. An experimental study depicts that using the full wrapping (FW) technique increases the flexural strength of PSC beams wrapped in JFRP by 23% and, by using the strip wrapping (SW) technique, the flexural strength is increased by 10%. The JFRP composite system of strengthening has shown the highest deformability index and showed that the JFRP material has enormous potential as a structural strengthening material.

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