REPAIR AND STRENGTHENING OF REINFORCED CONCRETE BEAMS USING NEAR-SURFACE MOUNTED FIBER REINFORCED POLYMER RODS

The majority of the buildings and other infrastructures in Ethiopia are mainly constructed of reinforced concrete (RC) structures. Through time, these structures tend to deteriorate due to the estimated durability time, poor technique at the early stage of construction or over loadings. For durable and effective usage of these structures to function as designed, repairing and strengthening becomes a necessity. Near surface mounted (NSM) Fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) is a new and promising technique for increasing the flexural and shear strength of RC members. This study is aimed to investigate the effectiveness and enhancement in capacity of the flexural strengthened RC beam structures using Near surface mounted (NSM) Glass Fiber reinforced polymer (GFRP) rods as compared to non-strengthened/control beam. The experimental study was conducted by loading the beams under center-point bending and instrumented with linear variable differential transducers device, LVDT and strain gauges to monitor deflection and strains at the mid-span location on the concrete beam and FRP respectively. Performance of the tested beams and their modes of failure is presented in this paper. The test results confirmed that the flexural performance of NSM GFRP strengthened beams increased on average of 21 to 30 % over the non-strengthened beams proposing this technique can be used for repairing and rehabilitation purpose of RC members