Strengthening reinforced concrete beams using prestressed glass fiber-reinforced polymer-Part I: Experimental study

This work is aimed at studying the strengthening of reinforced concrete (R. C.) beams using prestressed glass fi- ber-reinforced polymer (PGFRP). Carbon fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP) has recently become popular for use as repair or rehabilitation material for deteriorated R. C. structures, but because CFRP material is very stiff, the difference in CFRP sheet and concrete material properties is not favorable for transferring the prestress from CFRP sheets to R. C. members. Glass fi- ber-reinforced polymer (GFRP) sheets with Modulus of Elasticity quite close to that of concrete was chosen in this study. The load-carrying capacities (ultimate loads) and the deflections of strengthened R. C. beams using GFRP and PGFRP sheets were tested and compared. T- and ⊥-shaped beams were used as the under-strengthened and over-strengthened beams. The GFRP sheets were prestressed to one-half their tensile capacities before being bonded to the T- and ⊥-shaped R. C. beams. The prestressed tension in the PGFRP sheets caused cambers in the R. C. beams without cracks on the tensile faces. The PGFRP sheets also enhanced the load-carrying capacity. The test results indicated that T-shaped beams with GFRP sheets increased in load-carrying capacity by 55% while the same beams with PGFRP sheets could increase load-carrying capacity by 100%. The ⊥-shaped beams with GFRP sheets could increase load-carrying capacity by 97% while the same beams with PGFRP sheets could increase the loading-carrying capacity by 117%. Under the same external loads, beams with GFRP sheets underwent larger deflections than beams with PGFRP sheets. While GFRP sheets strengthen R. C. beams, PGFRP sheets decrease the beams’ ductility, especially for the over-strengthened beams (⊥-shaped beams).

Strengthening reinforced concrete beams using prestressed glass fiber-reinforced polymer-Part II:Analytical study

Strengthening reinforced concrete (R. C.) beams using prestressed glass fiber-reinforced polymer (PGFRP) was studied experimentally as described in Part I of this paper (Huang et al., 2005). In that paper, R. C. beams, R. C. beams with GFRP (glass fiber-reinforced polymer) sheets, and R. C. beams with PGFRP sheets were tested in both under-strengthened and over-strengthened cases. The test results showed that the load-carrying capacities (ultimate loads) of the beams with GFRP sheets were greater than those of the beams without polymer sheets. The load-carrying capacities of beams with PGFRP sheets were greater than those of beams with GFRP sheets. The objective of this work is to develop an analytical method to compute all of these load-carrying capacities. This analytical method is independent of the experiments and based only on the traditional R. C. and P. C. (prestressed concrete) theory. The analytical results accorded with the test results. It is suggested that this analytical method be used for analyzing and designing R. C. beams strengthened using GFRP or PGFRP sheets.