Flexural behavior of reinforced concrete beams retrofitted with modularized steel plates

Abstract

Many structural retrofitting methods tend to only focus on how to improve the strength and ductility of structural members. It is necessary for developing retrofitting strategy to consider not only upgrading the capacity but also achieving rapid and economical construction. In this paper, a new retrofitting details and technique is proposed to improve structural capacity and constructability for retrofitting reinforced concrete beams. The components of retrofitting are prefabricated, and the components are quickly assembled using bolts and chemical anchors on site. The details of modularized steel plates for retrofitting have been chosen based on the finite element analysis. To evaluate the structural performance of concrete beams retrofitted with the proposed details, five concrete beams with and without retrofitting were tested. The proposed retrofitting method significantly increased both the maximum load capacity and ductility of reinforced concrete beams. The test results showed that the flexural performance of the existing reinforced concrete beams increased by 3 times, the ductility by 2.5 times, and the energy dissipation capacity by 7 times.