Retrofitting of Existing Reinforced Concrete Members with Carbon Fibre - Essay Example

The results from the experiment generally indicated that when beams are retrofitted in shear as well as flexure by the use of carbon fibre reinforced polymer (CFRP) laminates, they become structurally efficient. In addition, they are also restored to stiffness as well as strength values which are almost equal to or in some cases greater than those of the control beam. It was evident from the results that the efficiency of the strengthening technique by the carbon fibre reinforced polymer (CFRP) in flexure was varying with respect to the length of carbon fibre reinforced polymer (CFRP) plate.

Of the three failure modes identified in this experimental work, the main failure was plate debonding in the retrofitted beams. There exist many structures which, for some reasons, fall short of fulfilling the specified requirements. These reasons may include accidents (such as earthquakes), increased loading, upgrade of the design standards, lack of maintenance, construction errors as well as corrosion of the reinforcement bars. The possible remedies for such insufficiency of the structures may include either replacement or retrofitting.

Either fibre reinforced polymer (FRP) or steel plates laminates can generally be used in retrofitting of bonded reinforcement to concrete structures. However, fibre reinforced polymer (FRP) is the most convenient for a number of reasons when compared to steel plates: In recent years, carbon fibre reinforced polymer (CFRP) has been widely used as an external reinforcement because it has been found to be important for the improvement of the structural performance of the reinforced concrete structures.

Many research work conducted in the past on the strengthening of existing reinforced concrete (RC) beams has been mostly focused on the flexural strengthening (Obaidat et al. 2009), (Ashour et al. 2004), (Wang & Zhang 2008), (Esfahani et al. 2007) and (Wenwei & Guo 2006). On the other hand, the topic