The shear behaviour of concrete beams strengthened with CFRP

Al-Juboori, WS

Abstract

A recent innovation for the shear strengthening of reinforced concrete (RC) beams is to
externally bond Carbon Fibre Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) composite plates or strips. This
technique has become popular because of the many advantages of CFRP composites such as:
high strength-to-weight ratio, good corrosion resistance, and versatility in coping with
different sectional shapes and corners. This study focuses on shear strengthening of structural
members using CFRP. The understanding of concrete structures designed for strengthening in
shear is still an area where uniform design rules do not exist or are treated very briefly. The
research programme to study the shear contribution of externally bonded CFRP sheets/strips
of RC beams includes laboratory tests of more than twenty-nine beam samples (of an original
conceptual model incorporating a shear plane) with beams of different materials: nine
aluminium beams, twenty concrete beams, and some timber beams for initial studies. There
are twenty-six pure tensile laboratory tests to study bond behaviour between the parent
material and CFRP. In addition, there are six pure shear specimens and tests to determine
other material properties. The numerical analyses employ the finite element method and
many numerical models are developed for simulation of the contribution of the CFRP for
shear strengthening and bond strength. On completion of the experimental programme and
FE analyses, the resulting information is used to formulate a new proposal for shear
strengthening of concrete beams using CFRP. The bond strengths predicted using existing
methods and new proposals from this study are compared with experimental data of this
study and previous studies, demonstrating that the new proposals are valid and offer
improvement over existing methods.

Citation

Al-Juboori, W. The shear behaviour of concrete beams strengthened with CFRP. (Thesis). Salford : University of Salford

• Thesis Type: Thesis
• Deposit Date: Oct 3, 2012
• Award Date: Jan 1, 2011