Experimental Investigation on Flexural Capacity of Reinforced Concrete Beams Strengthened with 3D-Fiberglass, CFRP and GFRP

Abstract

The main objective of this study is to investigate the structural performance of reinforced concrete (RC) beam specimens strengthened with 3D-fiberglass as compared with fiber-reinforced polymers (FRP) sheets. For this purpose, six RC beams were fabricated, strengthened, and tested under a four-point bending machine. One of the beams served as the control beam (REF), while the others were strengthened with carbon FRP (RCFRP), glass FRP (RGFRP), 3D-fiberglass and epoxy resin (R3DTR), 3D-fiberglass and epoxy resin extended to the sides (R3DTRB), and 3D-fiberglass and concrete repair (R3DTG). Failure mode, crack development, flexural capacity, ductility, the effectiveness of wrapping configurations, and the performance of epoxy resin in comparison with concrete repairer were studied between various beams. The results attest to the better performance and effectiveness of 3D-fiberglass over FRP in terms of flexural capacity, crack pattern, and ductility. The R3DTR and RGFRP specimens, compared to the control specimen, had the highest and lowest flexural capacity growth, with 19% and 8.4%, respectively. In addition, the failure modes observed in this study were in good agreement with the failure modes present in ACI.440.2R-17. Moreover, finite element (FE) models were proposed to predict the residual capacity of the specimens strengthened with FRP, using Abaqus software.