• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.181-190
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• 2005

The objective of this work is to study the flexural strengthening effectiveness of Carbon Fiber Mesh (CFM) in reinforced concrete beams. Flexural strengthening for a simply supported reinforced concrete (RC) beam using CFM is developed by bonding CFM to the soffit of the beam. In this experimental program, five medium-sized reinforced concrete beams strengthened with CFM are tested in bending to evaluate reinforcing effects of the CFM. The beams are designed to have high shear capacity so that expected dominant failure mode of specimens is bending. The reinforcing effect of CFM is small at crack initiation, but is considerable in flexural rigidity of the beam after crack initiation. In comparing the behaviors of strengthened and virgin beams each other, it is shown that the strength of RC beams can be enhanced by attaching CFM. A fairly good agreement between the measured values and the calculated ones is obtained at both the cracking strength and yield strength of the strengthened beams.