Short-Term Tensile Strength of Carbon Fiber-Reinforced Polymer Laminates for Flexural Strengthening of Concrete Girders

Abstract

This paper presents an analytical technique based on the Weibull theory for brittle materials that can be used to estimate the strength of unidirectional carbon fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP) laminates from fiber properties reported by the manufacturer. Good agreement is found between theoretical and experimental results of concrete T-beams strengthened with varying amounts of CFRP laminates. The design implications of the developed methodology are discussed, and a chart is provided for calculating CFRP laminate strength from fiber data reported by the manufacturer.