"Experimental and analytical investigations on the structural behavoiur of steel plate and cfrp laminate flexurally strengthened r.c. beams"
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-1-2008
Abstract
This study presents an experimental and analytical investigation to compare the structural behaviour of externally bonded steel plates and Carbon Fiber Reinforceed Polymer (CFRP) laminates flexurally strengthened r.c. beams. For the experimental investigation, three r.c. beams were cast. One beam was tested in the un-strengthened condition to act as the control beam. The second beam was strengthened using steel plate while the third beam was strengthened using CFRP laminate. The strengthened beams were designed to have the same strength with the assumption that they would fail in a ductile manner. The test results indicated that although both beams were designed for the same strength, the CFRP laminate strengthened beam recorded a slightly higher failure load compared to the steel plate strengthened beam. The steel plate strengthened beam recorded a higher cracking load and less deflections, reinforcement bar strains, concrete strains and crack widths compared to the CFRP laminate strengthened beam. Results also showed that the CFRP laminate strengthened beam failed by premature concrete cover separation failure, whereas the steel plate strengthened beam failed by premature plate end interfacial debonding followed by concrete cover separation. The beams were also modelled using a Finite Element Method (FEM) package. The numerical results seemed to agree well with the experimental results.
Keywords
Flexure, plate bonding method, un-anchored finite element method.
Divisions
fac_eng
Publication Title
Journal of Applied Sciences
Volume
8
Issue
23
Publisher
Journal of Applied Sciences