Static and cyclic performance of reinforced concrete slabs strengthened and retrofitted with epoxy bonded fibre reinforced plastic sheets

Abstract

There are different techniques of strengthening have been developed so far for the reinforced concrete slabs with or without cut-outs. The development of these methods has become essential due to different causes, such as insufficient maintenance, overloading of the reinforced concrete member, corrosion of the steel reinforcement and other different situations that appeared in time. In recent years, Fibre Reinforced Polymer (FRP) jacketing has become more popular to retrofit/strengthen the existing deficient slabs. The lightweight, high strength and corrosion resistance of FRPs made them particularly suitable for repair. In this study, the performances of the FRP strengthened/retrofitted Reinforced Concrete (RC) slabs were analysed. The main target of this research is to determine the potential of FRP strengthening for RC slabs. To establish the feasibility of using FRPs for strengthening of RC slabs, more information and data regarding performance were gathered in critical areas, such as mechanical properties of FRP confined concrete specimens and short term durability of FRP confined concrete specimens. Compressive, split tensile and flexural behaviour of FRP confined concrete specimens were studied. The parameters studied in this study were wrapping materials (which includes glass, carbon, basalt and aramid fibrere in forced polymers), number of plies (single and double plies) and orientation of fibres (along the length and circumference of concrete specimens). newline