Potentiality of far surface-mounted reinforcement for flexural strengthening of reinforced concrete beam

ABSTRACT This paper explores the potentiality of a proposed strengthening technique named as Far Surface Mounted (FSM) reinforcement for flexural strengthening of RC beam. In this technique the reinforcement is mounted in the tension face of the beam away from the existing beam surface and cast new concrete to increase the flexural capacity of the beam. Results of total 14 tested beams are analysed and presented here in this paper. To evaluate the performance of the new strengthening technique, the load-deflection behaviours of the beams strengthened with new technique are compared with the results of control beam and another beam strengthened with Near Surface Mounted (NSM) reinforcement method. It was found that the beam strengthened with new technique has higher flexural capacity than the control beam and beam strengthened with NSM technique. The influence of shear key spacing and inter-surface locking behaviour are also explored. In most of the cases, it found that the final failure modes are the shear and deboning of the added layer of concrete for the beams strengthened with new technique.