Experimental investigation of impact behavior of shear deficient reinforced concrete beams strengthened with CFRP

Many methods are improved for strengthening of reinforced concrete structural members against the effects of shear and bending. One of them is using fiber reinforced polymers (FRP) which has been used commonly in recent years with its high tensile strength and low weigth. One of the external effects on the reinforced concrete structural members during service period is impact effect. The determination of magnitude, the excitation time, deformations and stress due to impact loadins are complicated and rarely known subject.In recent years impact behavior of concrete and reinforced concrete members have been researched with experimental studies using drop-weigth method and numercial simulations using finite element method. However the studies on the strengthening of structural members against impact loading is very seldom the literarture. At this point, in this study impact behavior of shear failure type reinforced concrete beams strengthening with Carbon fiber reinforced polymers (CFRP) strips were investigated experimentaly. Experiments were conducted using drop-weight method. Compressive strength of concrete, wrapping range of CFRP strips and impact velocities were taken as variables in experiment. The Acceleration of RC Beams due to impact loading is measured through the acceleration instruments on the specimens. Velocities and displacements of RC Beams were calculated by considering the accerelation of RC Beams. RC Beams were modeled with ANSYS finite element program and impact simulations were carried out on computer. Experimental result and simulations result were compared. Experimental result showed that strengthening with CFRP is highly effective in retrofitting the impact behavior of shear failure type RC Beams