Abstract
Strengthening of existing concrete structures is a major concern in recent years as the number of degraded structures increases. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the static and fatigue behavior of reinforced concrete (RC) beams strengthened with steel plates. To this end, a comprehensive test program has been set up and many series of strengthened beams have been tested. The major test variables include the plate thickness, adhesive thickness, and the shear-span to depth ratio. The test results indicate that the separation of plates is the dominant failure mechanism even for the full-span-length strengthened beams with steel plate. The theoretical ultimate load capacities for strengthened beams based on the full composite action of concrete beam and steel plate are found to be larger than the actual measured load capacities. The strengthened beams exhibit more dominant shear cracking as the shear-span to depth ratio decreases. The ultimate capacity of strengthened beams increases slightly with the increase of adhesive thickness, which may be caused by the late initiation of plate separation in the beams with thicker adhesive. A realistic concept of ductility for plate-strengthened beams is proposed in this study. It is seen that the strengthened beams show relatively low ductility compared with unstrengthened beams. The present study indicates that the strengthened beams exhibit much higher fatigue resistance than the unstrengthened beams. The increase of deflections of strengthened beams according to the number of load cycles is much smaller than that of unstrengthened beams. The present study provides very useful results for the realistic application of plate-strengthening method in reinforced concrete structures.
