Behavior of a 60-year-old Reinforced Concrete Box Beam Strengthened with Basalt Fiber-reinforced Polymers Using Steel Plate Anchorage

Abstract

In the past twenty years, fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) has been utilized broadly to strengthen concrete structures for its superiority. The influence of FRP and end anchorage with FRP U-strips or grooving on the behaviors of reinforced concrete (RC) beams has been investigated. However, investigations on the influence of basalt FRP (BFRP) and steel plates on the behaviors of strengthened RC beams remain lacking, especially under the circumstances that the RC beams are full-scale and cracked. The present study investigated the influence of BFRP and steel plates on the behaviors of full-scale cracked RC beams including failure mode, load-carrying capacity, stress-strain relationship and stiffness. Test results demonstrated that: (1) BFRP improved the behaviors of full-scale cracked RC beams from multiple angles; (2) the steel plates had a better effect on restricting the development of cracks and increasing the load-carrying capacity of full-scale cracked RC beams than FRP U-strips; (3) the calculation method considering the influence of FRP debonding was proved effectively to obtain the theoretical load-carrying capacity of BFRP-strengthened RC beams anchoring with steel plates; (4) the steel plates could postpone the development of BFRP debonding at the initial stage, and delay the further propagation of the debonding.

Effect of Reinforcement Forms on the Load Bearing Capacity of Prefabricated Box Culvert

“…The curve of load-displacement has been proven to be an essential method for evaluating the load bearing capacity of PBC in the four-point bending, as reported in [44][45][46]. The load-displacement curve of PBC is shown in Figure 10.…”

RC members externally strengthened with FRP composites by grooving methods including EBROG and EBRIG: A state-of-the-art review

“…As a case, the load-carrying capacity of the EBRIG beams with semicircle, triangular and rectangular groove cross-section was 74.0, 58.0, and 95.0% higher than the load-carrying capacity of the non-strengthened beam, respectively. Shen et al [75,[122][123] strengthened RC box beams with initial flexural cracks using BFRP strips. A beam (beam B0) remained non-strengthened, and the other beams were strengthened by CFRP strips for shear-strengthening and by the BFRP strips for flexural strengthening.…”