EXPERIMENTAL EVALUATION OF EFFECT OF OVERLAY OF FRP ON THE PERFORMANCE OF RC SLAB

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.