Behavior of RC beams patch repaired and strengthened with FRP composites : a numerical study

Includes bibliographical references.Reinforced concrete (RC) beams get deteriorated and become deficient mainly due to corrosion of steel reinforcements, poor maintenance and design, earthquakes and aging. Patch repair and structural strengthening using fiber reinforced polymers (FRP) have been increasingly adopted all over the world as an economical solution to upgrade the load carrying capacity of such beams. However, the failure modes of such repaired and strengthened RC beams are governed by brittle and sudden premature debonding which involves separation of external reinforcement; i.e. FRP and RC beam. Different researchers have used different approaches including experimental, analytical and numerical to investigate the behavior of patch repaired and FRP strengthened RC beams. It is noteworthy that there are no such numerical studies that investigated the effect of patch repair. In this study, a numerical investigation was carried out using the commercial finite elements analysis software ABAQUS with the aim of investigating the overall behavior of RC beams patch repaired and strengthened with FRP plates including the failure mechanisms