Shear strength enhancement of lightweight aggregate reinforced concrete deep beams by using CFRP strips

In this research, results of an experimental investigation on the shear strengthening of lightweight aggregate reinforced concrete deep beams are presented. A total of eight lightweight aggregate deep beams were cast and tested in the experimental work to study the effect of externally bonded CFRP strips in improving their structural behavior, one of them was unstrengthened to serve as a control beam while the remaining seven beams were strengthened in different orientation, spacing and number of layers of CFRP. The locally available natural porcelanite rocks are used to seek the possibility of producing structural lightweight aggregate concrete. The beams were designed to satisfy the requirements of ACI 318M- 14 building code. Results show that the CFRP strips have increased the load carrying capacity for the strengthened deep beams up to 50 % when comparedto the unstrenghtened control one. The diagonal compression strut crack of unstrenghtened control beam is changed to several diagonal cracks in the mid-depth within the shear span of the strengthened beams and exhibited more ductile failure modes. The results also indicate that bonded CFRP system in the shear span was seen to delay the formation of diagonal shear cracks and provided positive restraint to the subsequent growth of cracks. Increasing the amount of CFRP (by increasing the number of layers from one to two layers) results in increase in the ultimate load by about 15%. However, the increase in the spacing between the strips (from 100 to 150mm) led to a decrease in the ultimate load by about 13%