Rehabilitation of damaged high strength reinforced concrete corbels via basalt fabric

The main aim of this thesis is to investigate the mechanical performance of heated and damaged high strength self-compacting reinforced concrete corbels after rehabilitation and strengthening with crack repair epoxy and Basalt Fiber Reinforced Polymer (BFRP) fabric. A comprehensive experimental study consisting of 18 double-sided corbels was carried out to achieve aim of thesis. All of the corbels had been damaged because of overloading after heating them to several temperature levels (250oC, 500oC, and 750oC). The corbels had been produced from high strength self-compacting concrete with one concrete class (80 MPa), three different amounts of steel fiber ratios (0%, 0.5%, 1%) and two main reinforcement ratios (0.0388 and 0.0708). Shear span value for all corbels is same (90 mm). Nine of the corbels were rehabilitated with very low viscosity crack repair epoxy. However, remaining ones were strengthened by BFRP fabric in addition to repair of initial cracks. Experimental results show that rehabilitation of the corbels with BFRP fabric is much more effective as compared to repair of the corbels with only crack repair epoxy regarding improvement of mechanical properties (ductility and load carrying capacity) of them. Besides, stiffness of the corbels which were rehabilitated by BFRP fabric was nearly same with the stiffness before initial failure. Keywords: corbels, high strength concrete, self-compacted concrete, rehabilitation, very low viscosity injection resin, Basalt fiber fabric, epoxy.