• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• 제84권1호
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• pp.49-61
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• 2022

This paper presents an experimental investigation into the effectiveness of using carbon fibre reinforced polymer (CFRP) and steel plates to repair damaged reinforced concrete (RC) beams with circular web openings at shear zones. It highlights the effectiveness of externally bonded CFRP and steel plates in repairing damaged RC beams by analysing the repaired beams'load capacity, deflection, strain, and failure mode. For the experiment, a total of five beams were used, with one solid beam as a control beam and the other four beams having an opening near the shear zone. Two beams with openings were repaired using inclined and vertical configuration CFRP plates, and the other two were repaired using inclined and vertical configuration steel plates. The results confirm the effectiveness of CFRP and steel plates for repairing damaged RC beams with circular openings. The CFRP and steel plates significantly increase ultimate capacity and reduce deflection under the openings. The inclined configuration of both CFRP and steel plates was more effective than the vertical configuration. Using an inclined configuration not only increases the ultimate capacity of the beams but also changes the mode of failure from shear to flexural.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• 제40권1호
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• pp.105-120
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• 2011

The strengthening and rehabilitation of reinforced concrete structures with externally bonded carbon fibre reinforced polymer (FRP) laminates has shown excellent performance and, as a result, this technology is rapidly replacing steel plate bonding techniques. This paper addresses this issue, and presents results deals with the influence of external bonded CFRP-reinforcement on the time-dependent behavior of reinforced concrete beams. A total of eight reinforced concrete beams with cracked and un-cracked section, with and without externally bonded CFRP laminates, were investigated for their creep and shrinkage behavior. All the beams considered in this paper were simply supported and subjected to a uniform sustained loading for the period of six months. The main parameters of this study are two types of sustained load and different degrees of strengthening scheme for both cracked and un-cracked sections of beams. Both analytical and experimental work has been carried out on strengthened beams to investigate the cracking and deflection performance. The applied sustained load was 56% and 38% of the ultimate static capacities of the un-strengthened beams for cracked and un-cracked section respectively. The analytical values based on effective modulus method (EMM) are compared to the experimental results and it is found that the analytical values are in general give conservative estimates of the experimental results. It was concluded that the attachment of CFRP composite laminates has a positive influence on the long term performance of strengthened beams.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• 제34권1호
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• pp.91-105
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• 2020

Steel-concrete composite beam with profiled steel sheet has gained its popularity in the last two decades. Due to the ageing of these structures, retrofitting in terms of flexural strength is necessary to ensure that the aged structures can carry the increased traffic load throughout their design life. The steel ribs, which presented in the profiled steel deck, limit the use of shear connectors. This leads to a poor degree of composite action between the concrete slab and steel beam compared to the solid slab situation. As a result, the shear connectors that connects the slab and beam will be subjected to higher shear stress which may also require strengthening to increase the load carrying capacity of an existing composite structure. While most of the available studies focus on the strengthening of longitudinal shear and flexural strength separately, the present work investigates the effect of both flexural and longitudinal shear strengthening of steel-concrete composite beam with composite slab in terms of failure modes, ultimate load carrying capacity, ductility, end-slip, strain profile and interface differential strain. The flexural strengthening was conducted using carbon fibre reinforced polymer (CFRP) or steel plate on the soffit of the steel I-beam, while longitudinal shear capacity was enhanced using post-installed high strength bolts. Moreover, a combination of both the longitudinal shear and flexural strengthening techniques was also implemented (hybrid strengthening). It is concluded that hybrid strengthening improved the ultimate load carrying capacity and reduce slip and interface differential strain that lead to improved composite action. However, hybrid strengthening resulted in brittle failure mode that decreased ductility of the beam.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• 제20권3호
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• pp.671-692
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• 2016

FRP stay-in-place (SIP) formworks are designed as a support for casting concrete and as a tension reinforcement when concrete is cured. Bond development between SIP formwork and concrete is critical for FRP tension element to be effective. This paper reports the bond strength between FRP formwork and concrete for different interfacial treatments. A novel experimental setup is prepared for observing the bond behaviour. Three different adhesives with varying workability have been investigated. Along with the load-deformation characteristics, bond slip and strains in the formwork have been measured. A finite element numerical simulation was conducted for the experiments to understand the underlying mechanism. The results show that the adhesive bonding has the best bond strength.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• 제64권1호
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• pp.135-143
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• 2017

To upgrade shear performance of reinforced concrete (RC) beams, and particularly of the segments under negative moment within continuous T-section beams, a series of original schemes has been proposed using carbon fibre-reinforced polymer (CFRP) U-shaped strips for shear-strengthening. The current work focuses on one of them, in which CFRP U-strips are wound around steel bars against the top of the flange of a T-beam and then spliced on its bottom face in addition to being bonded onto its sides. The test results showed that the proposed scheme successfully provided reliable anchorage for U-strips and prevented premature onset of shear failure due to FRP debonding. The governing shear mode of failure changed from peeling of CFRP to its fracture or crushing of concrete. The strengthened specimens displayed an average increase of about 60% in shear capacity over the unstrengthened control one. The specimen with a relatively high ratio and uniform distribution of CFRP reinforcement had a maximum increase of nearly 75% in strength as well as significantly improved ductility. The formulas by various codes or guidelines exhibited different accuracy in estimating FRP contribution to shear resistance of the segments that are subjected to negative moment and strengthened with well-anchored FRP U-strips within continuous T-beams. Further investigation is necessary to find a suitable approach to predicting load-carrying capacity of continuous beams shear strengthened in this way.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• 제19권6호
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• pp.603-618
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• 2005

The split Hopkinson pressure bar (SHPB) technique is widely used to characterize the dynamic mechanical response of engineering materials at high strain rates. In this paper, attendant problems associated with testing 70 mm diameter concrete specimens are considered, analysed and resolved. An adaptation of a conventional solid circular striker bar, as a means of achieving reliable and repeatable SHPB tests, is then proposed. In the analysis, a pseudo one-dimensional model is used to analyse wave propagation in a non-uniform striker bar. The stress history of the incident wave is then obtained by using the finite difference method. Comparison was made between incident waves determined from the simplified model, finite element solution and experimental data. The results show that the simplified method is adequate for designing striker bar shapes to overcome difficulties commonly encountered in SHPB tests. Using two specifically designed striker bars, tests were conducted on 70 mm diameter steel fibre reinforced concrete specimens. The results are presented in the paper.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• 제38권6호
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• pp.697-714
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• 2011

Assessing the ductility of reinforced concrete sections and members has been a complex and intractable problem for many years. Given the complexity in estimating ductility, members are often designed specifically for strength whilst ductility is provided implicitly through the use of ductile steel reinforcing bars and by ensuring that concrete crushing provides the ultimate limit state. As such, the empirical hinge length and neutral axis depth approaches have been sufficient to estimate ductility and moment redistribution within the bounds of the test regimes from which they were derived. However, being empirical, these methods do not have a sound structural mechanics background and consequently have severe limitations when brittle materials are used and when concrete crushing may not occur. Structural mechanics based approaches to estimating rotational capacities and rotation requirements for given amounts of moment redistribution have shown that FRP plated reinforced concrete (RC) sections can have significant moment redistribution capacities. In this paper, the concept of moment redistribution in beams is explained and it is shown specifically how an existing RC member can be retrofitted with FRP plates for both strength and ductility requirements. Furthermore, it is also shown how ductility through moment redistribution can be used to maximise the increase in strength of a member. The concept of primary and secondary hinges is also introduced and it is shown how the response of the non-hinge region influences the redistribution capacity of the primary hinges, and that for maximum moment redistribution to occur the non-hinge region needs to remain elastic.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• 제32권5호
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• pp.649-665
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• 2009

This paper reports part of a comprehensive research study conducted at the University of Queensland on the ability of CFRP web-bonded systems in strengthening an exterior beam-column joint subjected to monotonic loads. One 1/2.2 scaled plain and four CFRP repaired/retrofitted joints subjected to monotonic loads were analysed using the nonlinear finite-element program ANSYS and the results were calibrated against experiments. The ANSYS model was employed in order to account for tension stiffening in concrete after cracking and a modified version of the Hognestad's model was used to model the concrete compressive strength. The stress-strain properties of main steel bars were modelled using multilinear isotropic hardening model and the FRPs were modelled as anisotropic materials. A perfect bond was assumed as nodes were shared between adjacent elements irrespective of their type. Good agreement between the numerical predictions and the experimental observation of the failure mechanisms for all specimens were observed. Closeness of these results proved that the numerical analysis can be used by design engineers for the analysis of web-bonded FRP strengthened beam-column joints with confidence.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• 제21권4호
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• pp.921-947
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• 2016

Concrete Filled Fibre Reinforced Polymer Tube (CFFT) for new columns construction has attracted significant research attention in recent years. The CFFT acts as a formwork for new columns and a barrier to corrosion accelerating agents. It significantly increases both the strength capacity (Strength enhancement ratio) and the ductility (Strain enhancement ratio) of reinforced concrete columns. In this study, based on predefined selection criteria, experimental investigation results of 134 circular CFFT columns under axial compression have been compiled and analysed from 599 CFFT specimens available in the literature. It has been observed that actual confinement ratio (expressed as a function of material properties of fibres, diameter of CFFT and compressive strength of concrete) has significant influence on the strength and ductility of circular CFFT columns. Design oriented models have been proposed to compute the strength and strain enhancement ratios of circular CFFT columns. The proposed strength and strain enhancement ratio models have significantly reduced Average Absolute Error (AAE), Mean Square Error (MSE), Relative Standard Error of Estimate (RSEE) and Standard Deviation (SD) as compared to other available strength and strain enhancement ratios of circular CFFT column models. The predictions of the proposed strength and strain enhancement ratio models match well with the experimental strength and strain enhancement ratios investigation results in the compiled database.

• Computers and Concrete
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• 제20권5호
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• pp.583-593
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• 2017

Applications of fibre-reinforced polymer (FRP) composites for retrofitting, strengthening and repairing concrete structures have been expanded dramatically in the last decade. FRPs have high specific strength and stiffness compared to conventional construction materials, e.g., steel. Ease of preparation and installation, resistance to corrosion, versatile fabrication and adjustable mechanical properties are other advantages of the FRPs. However, there are major concerns about long-term performance, serviceability and durability of FRP applications in concrete structures. Therefore, structural health monitoring (SHM) and damage detection in FRP-retrofitted concrete structures need to be implemented. This paper presents a study on investigating the application of Rayleigh wave for detecting debonding defect in FRP-retrofitted concrete structures. A time-of-flight (ToF) method is proposed to determine the location of a debonding between the FRP and concrete using Rayleigh wave. A series of numerical case studies are carried out to demonstrate the capability of the proposed debonding detection method. In the numerical case studies, a three-dimensional (3D) finite element (FE) model is developed to simulate the Rayleigh wave propagation and scattering at the debonding in the FRP-retrofitted concrete structure. Absorbing layers are employed in the 3D FE model to reduce computational cost in simulating the practical size of the FRP-retrofitted structure. Different debonding sizes and locations are considered in the case studies. The results show that the proposed ToF method is able to accurately determine the location of the debonding in the FRP-retrofitted concrete structure.