Abstract:The purpose of this study was to evaluate the performance of a novel strengthening system using T-shaped carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) profiles. The proposed system successfully combines the advantages of two established strengthening techniques, namely the near surface mounted (NSM) and externally bonded (EB) methods. The paper presents the experimental results of structural tests carried out on seven flexurally-strengthened and two non-strengthened full-scale reinforced concrete (RC) members. Two T-shaped profiles having heights of 15 and 30 mm were applied. The main parameters of concrete strength and composite strengthening ratio were investigated to evaluate the efficiency of the proposed flexural strengthening system. All specimens were tested under a quasi-static six-point bending configuration. The test results showed a significant increase in the load bearing capacity and the stiffness of the RC beams with strengthening and also a notable reduction in maximum deflections. The high tensile strength utilization of the CFRP profiles places this strengthening technique as a promising alternative to other, less structurally-efficient systems.
Carbon-fiber-reinforced-polymer (CFRP) composite materials applied according to near-surface-mounted (NSM) technique constitute an effective technique for the flexural and shear strengthening of reinforced-concrete (RC) structures. However, the NSM CFRP reinforcement ratio is limited by the thickness of concrete cover of the longitudinal tensile steel bars, and the minimum distance between consecutive CFRPs, below which premature fracture of surrounding concrete occurs due to group effect. Hence, the current study aims to experimentally and numerically evaluate the strengthening potentialities of a novel NSM system (with high CFRP ratio capability) for the flexural strengthening of RC beams. This new system combines externally-bonded-reinforcement (EBR) and NSM techniques in the same application using T-shaped CFRP profiles. The obtained experimental results of the RC beams strengthened with CFRP profiles are presented and discussed with the aim of evaluating the influence of CFRP profile reinforcement ratio on the strengthening efficiency of this technique. A developed 3D finite-element (FE) approach is used to simulate the experimental tests. After demonstrating its good predictive performance, a series of parametric studies is performed to assess the influence of the main material properties, and ratio of bond area to cross sectional area of the CFRP profiles on the efficiency of the proposed system.
Article:Cholostiakow, S., Di Benedetti, M. orcid.org/0000-0001-7870-1323, Pilakoutas, K. orcid.org/0000-0001-6672-7665 et al. (1 more author) (2019) Effect of beam depth on shear behavior of FRP RC beams. Journal of Composites for ConstructionAbstract: The behaviour of shear critical fibre-reinforced-polymer (FRP) reinforced concrete (RC) elements is characterised by the development of comparatively large strains and crack widths, which can be strongly influenced by their relative geometrical size. This paper investigates experimentally the size effect on the shear behaviour of FRP RC beams with and without shear reinforcement and overall depth varying from 260 mm to 460 mm. The results confirm a considerable size effect for members without shear reinforcement, showing an average reduction in normalized shear strength of about 19 %, with maximum value up to 40 %.It is also shown that current design provisions are overall conservative, but with non-uniform margins of safety that decrease with increasing member depth. It is anticipated that the results of this study will help improve the efficiency of future design equations for the shear strength of FRP RC.
The paper presents test results of an experimental program of four full-scale RC beams, strengthened in flexure with T-section carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) profiles and two reference beams subjected to a six point bending. The novel shape of CFRP profile combines both the near surface mounted (NSM) and externally bonded (EB) strengthening systems. The application of the CFRP profiles consisted of gluing both the web and the flange of the profile to the concrete surface. RC beams made of the same concrete class were differed by the internal steel reinforcement ratio and in a number of applied profiles. Efficiency of this new strengthening product was determined by comparison of the strengthened and non-strengthened RC beams. An increase of the CFRP-concrete bond area and high stiffness of the T-section profiles significantly improved the strengthening ratio (up to 130% of the reference beam) and reduced the maximum mid-span deflection (ranged of 70-80%) of the non–strengthened beams. The CFRP strain utilisation equal to 67% of the tensile strain corresponded to the maximum CFRP strains equal to 0,73%. The promising test results exhibit this system as a very attractive proposal of new strengthening technique used for field applications of the existing structures.
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