Abstract:
Reinforced concrete members become vulnerable to damage due to incorrect design, past
earthquake damages, ageing, corrosion etc. Such members need strengthening to enhance
their capacity. The current study is about experimental evaluation of effectiveness of Fiber
Reinforced Polymers (FRPs) in strengthening of RC slabs. For the study two different types
of slabs were fabricated one with full reinforcement in both direction representing
conventional slabs and other with no reinforcement in central region in order to simulate
removed part of corroded reinforcement except support section. For strengthening purpose
two different types of FRPs, Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymers (CFRP) and Glass Fiber
Reinforced Polymers (GFRP) were used, with two different patterns having different widths
of FRP strips. FRP strips were bonded on bottom surface of the slab specimens and
specimens were tested under central point load with edges kept simply supported load and
deflection data was recorded.
In case of unreinforced slab specimens an average strength increase in GFRP is 210% and
CFRP strengthened specimens is 210% and 318% respectively. In case of reinforced
concrete slab specimens strength increase using GFRP is about 32% and using CFRP is
100%. In case of reinforced concrete slabs strength increase in GFRP strengthened and
CFRP strengthened specimens is 32% and 100% respectively.
Further, results obtained from experimental work were used to evaluate effect of
strengthening of slabs using FRPs in flat slab system on their performance against lateral
loading. For this purpose flat slab building was modeled and analyzed using SAP2000.
Results from the analysis shown significant improvement in the performance of flat slab
system using both strengthening techniques.
