Engineering and Technology Journal

This study describes an experimental work that was made to evaluate the effect of wetting and drying cycles on the behavior of concrete specimens externally strengthened with CFRP laminates. The experimental work included testing of twenty-three concrete specimens externally strengthened with CFRP laminates in different positions, with two compressive strength levels. The experimental variables considered in the test program include, compression strength of concrete, number of carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) strip layers, using CFRP strips throughout the total length of the specimen or within the middle third, and the number of wetting and drying cycles. The testing program included compression strength test, four-point flexural test, direct tension test, single and double face shear tests. The experimental results show that the increasing time of exposure to wetting and drying cycles lead to a significant increase in compressive strength, increasing the cracking loads which reached up to 22%., and decreasing the ultimate load carrying capacity.

A total of fourteen beams, 100×150 mm in cross-section were tested in the laboratory over an effective span of 2000 mm. Two of them were used as reference beams. Twelve fiber reinforced concrete beams were provided with externally bonded CFRP laminates at the soffit of the beam. The variables considered included number of CFRP layers, yield strength of steel reinforcement (fy) and steel reinforcement ratio (). All the beams were tested until failure. The test results showed that the ultimate load carrying capacity increased by 56% as average by increasing of the ratio of steel reinforcement from (0.0127 to 0.0324). The deflection ductility index DDI values averaged (1.80) and (1.75) for one-layer strengthened beams and two-layer ones, respectively. The corresponding energy ductility index EDI values averaged (1.75) and (1.73), respectively. The DDI and EDI for the control beams were 4.61 and 6.24, respectively. With the exception of the control beams, all of the beams exhibited poor ductility. Failures in all strengthened beams were accompanied by the release of large amounts of energy (known as elastic energy) relative to inelastic energy. Therefore, a reasonable factor of safety should be used in the design of FRP strengthened reinforced concrete members.

In this paper, a numerical modeling performed to study the effect of carbon fiber reinforced polymers (CFRP) as a shear strengthening of corbels. In this study a theoretical simulation is achieved with reinforced concrete corbels, several CFRP strengthening positions has been studied with different shear span – effective depth ratio (a/d) of (0.5,0.6&0.7). The numerical model, by using program (ANSYS 12.1) verified by compare its results with the experimental results. It was found that the position and the amount of (CFRP) as well as the vary of (a/d) ratio, have a great effects on the ultimate load capacity of corbels. Where, the ultimate load capacity increase as the amount of (CFRP) increased in certain positions of corbels, with regards the vary in (a/d) ratio.

This study presents an experimental and nonlinear finite element analysis of creating square openings in existing RC beams and strengthening with CFRP laminate. Flexural strengthening of reinforced concrete beams is now becoming more and more important in the field of structural maintenance and retrofitting. In the experimental programming, three RC beams were cast. Two beams were tested in the un-strengthened condition the first act as the solid Control beam, and the other have openings, the third one have opening and strengthening with CFRP laminate. The beams were also modeled using a FEM packaged (ANSYS 11). The results indicate that the strengthened beam recorded the highest failure load and its mode of failure was ductile. The numerical results seemed to be able to predict the behavior of the beams.