Experimental Study on Shear Behavior of RC Beams Strengthened with Stainless Steel Wire Mesh

Abstract

Rehabilitation of RC members with stainless steel wire mesh and permeability polymer mortar is a new method of structural strengthening with the advantages of resistance to fire, corrosion and ageing. Experiments were conducted to investigate the shear behavior of eight strengthened RC rectangular beams and one comparative RC beam. The shear mechanism of strengthened beams was analyzed, and the influences of the strengthening manners, bolts’ amount, bolts’ distance on the shear behavior of strengthened beams were discussed. The test results show that the rehabilitation greatly increase the beam’s shear load-carrying capacity, shear stiffness, and its ductility. But the range of load capacity improvement is greatly influenced by the bolts’ amount and distance, too much and dense bolts badly weaken the shear behavior of beam itself. The influences of the strengthening manners on the load capacity are puny, but the beams’ failure modes are different.