An application of high performance fiber reinforced cementitious composites for R/C beams strengthening

The possibility of using concrete materials with tensile hardening behaviour (High Performance Fiber Reinforced Cementitious Composites, HPFRCC) for strengthening R/C beams is investigated. In order to verify the effectiveness of the proposed solution, full scale tests have been performed on 4.5 m long beams. A beam without any reinforcement and a beam with an ordinary reinforcement ratio equal to 0.03% have been strengthened with a jacket in HPFRCC having a thickness of 40 mm. A third beam with an ordinary rein-forcement ratio and without jacket application has been used as reference specimen. The obtained results show the effectiveness of the proposed technique both at ultimate and serviceability limit states