Flexural Strengthening of Reinforced Concrete Beam Bonded with Built-in T Type BFRP Plate

Recently, Basalt Fiber Reinforced Polymer (BFRP) is expected to be a new excellent material for repair and rehabilitation of civil infrastructure due to its benefit of sound mechanical properties, high corrosion resistant, and low cost. However, studies investigating RC beam externally strengthened with BFRP are still limited in the literature. The objective of this study is to determine the effect of BFRP strengthening on flexural performance of RC beam. Four RC beams with rectangular cross section were produced and strengthened using different BFRP reinforcement techniques and tested under four-point bending until failure. The failure mode, crack width, number of cracks, load-deflection response curves, and ductility of overall beam system were recorded and analyzed. Experimental results showed that the stiffness and the ultimate capacity of the strengthened beam were increased 8%-23% and 14%-30%, respectively, over the control beam. To predict load-carrying capacity and deflection of tested specimens, three-dimension finite element (FE) modeling was performed using ABAQUS software to simulate the behavior of the RC beam strengthened with FRP plates. Prediction with the FE model matched well with experimental results in terms of mid-span deflection and load-carrying capacity.