Employing Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer Composites toward the Flexural Strengthening of Reinforced Concrete T-Beams

Abstract

Reinforced concrete structures are exposed to various loads under critical environmental conditions, which might lead to the deterioration of the structures prior to their designed service life. Hence, to improve the serviceability of the reinforced concrete (RC) structures and meet the design requirements, the structures are strengthened using carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) composites. The application of CFRP is done using two major techniques, namely externally bonded (EB) reinforcement and near surface mounted (NSM) techniques. The purpose of this study was to examine and compare the behavior of RC T-beams that had been flexurally reinforced utilizing EB and NSM techniques. Six full-size RC T-beams were evaluated, including a reference beam and four beams that had been flexurally reinforced using laminates made of EB and NSM CFRP. The findings of the experimental tests reveal that, when using the same quantity of CFRP, the beams strengthened with NSM laminates outperformed those strengthened with EB laminates in terms of ultimate load.