An experimental study on some flexure rehabilitation methods of RC beams

Abstract

This paper presents an experimental study on restoring the flexure capacity of fully damaged reinforced concrete (RC) beams. A total of 10 RC beams were tested to ultimate load and rehabilitated by four author defined flexure rehabilitation techniques along with one conventional technique (i.e., section enhancement). Two sets of beams are designed to fail in flexure with a moment of resistance of 6.58 kN·m and 8.65 kN·m. All the beams failed in flexure and are rehabilitated using (stitching method, mesh method, mesh + stitching method, mesh + section enhancement method) and one conventional technique (section enhancement method). It can be observed from the results that most of the flexure strengthened RC elements are failing by de-bonding of repair materials. However, they are found to be effective in significantly restoring the capacity of damaged beams. It is concluded from this study that stitching and mesh + stitching methods are effective to restore the flexure capacity of damaged beams. Beams rehabilitated with stitching method and mesh + stitching methods, failed at a load of 115%, 135% higher than their respective control beam.