RESEARCH ARTICLE


Effect of Preload Level on Flexural Load-carrying Capacity of RC Beams Strengthened by Externally Bonded FRP Sheets



Guibing Li*, 1, Aihui Zhang2, Yugang Guo3
1 Department of Management Science and Engineering, Shandong Institute of Business and Technology, Yantai 264005, China
2 College of Civil Engineering & Architecture, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China
3 College of International Business, Shandong Institute of Business and Technology, Yantai 264005, China


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Creative Commons License
© 2015 Li et al;

open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

* Address correspondence to this author at the College of Management Science and Engineering, Shandong Institute of Business and Technology, Yantai, 264005, China; Tel: +86-755-6903575; E-mail: liguibing@zju.edu.cn, leegb@sina.com


Abstract

Most of the laboratory tests investigated the flexural performance of un-preloaded or undamaged RC beams strengthened with CFRP composites. However, in engineering applications, the structural member must carry a certain load or damage. There is a lack of systematical investigations on the effects of preload or damage level on the flexural load-carrying capacity of CFRP-strengthened RC beams. This paper tested 22 RC beams to investigate the influence of preload level on flexural load-carrying capacity of CFRP-strengthened RC beams. The test variables are preload level, amount of CFRP sheets, tension rebar ratio, and concrete strength. The test results show that if the preload level is not more than 80% of the yielding strength of the original beam, the preload or damage level does not influence the flexural load-carrying capacity of CFRP-strengthened RC beams. However, the ultimate flexural load-carrying capacity is significantly poor than that of RC beam strengthened under a preload level not more than 80% of the yielding strength, if the RC beams are strengthened under a preload level more than 90% of the yielding strength.

Keywords: CFRP-strengthened, flexural load-carrying capacity, preload level, RC beam.