Flexural Behavior of NSM CFRP - Stone Composite Beams: Experimental Investigation

Abstract

A technique for increasing the flexural behavior of stone beams using near-surface mounted (NSM) carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) rods is proposed. Four granite beams were tested under monotonic loading to investigate the effectiveness of this technique. One conventional stone beam was kept unreinforced as the control specimen and three beams were reinforced with NSM CFRP rods. The main test parameters included rod diameters and reinforcement ratios. Three types of failure modes were observed during testing, namely, abrupt fracture for conventional stone beams, flexure failure for moderately-reinforced beams and flexure-shear failure for over-reinforced beams, respectively. Test results showed that reinforcing with NSM CFRP could significantly enhance the flexural behavior of stone beams. For specimens with a reinforcement ratio of 0.14%, an average increase up to 91.0% in the ultimate load with respect to that of the control beam was obtained and the deformation capacity was dramatically increased. For specimens with a reinforcement ratio of 0.28%, though flexural behavior was greatly enhanced, an unfavorable shear failure was observed.