Experimental Study on Fracture Behaviors of Concrete Beams Strengthened with FRP Sheet of Different Width

Abstract

A total of six beams have been tested to investigate the influence of FRP sheet on the mechanical behavior of concrete beam with different FRP sheet width. In addition, the failure mode of the concrete beam and FRP reinforced concrete beams were also studied by numerical simulation method named Realistic Failure Process Analysis (RFPA). The results indicate that, the loading capacity is increased and maximum deflection of the concrete beam is also increased with the increasing of the FRP sheet width. Moreover, the interfacial debonding easily propagates along the interfacial concrete layer at a load that is below the estimated maximum strength of the FRP-strengthened structure. The maximum strength of the FRP sheet in the experiment was not achieved due to the adhesive layer between the concrete and FRP sheet was not strong enough compared with the numerical simulation result. It showed that the FRP sheet width was considered to be an important factor influence the failure mode and load capacity. So does the interface between the concrete and FRP plate.