Experimental investigation on shear strengthening with fiber/textile reinforced concrete

The use of textile reinforced concrete (TRC) as a shear strengthening solution for reinforced concrete (RC) structures is a viable and effective strategy. The low tensile strength of the cementitious matrix used to produce TRC, however, can strongly limit the performance achievable by such material. Using fiber/textile reinforced concrete (F/TRC), that is, TRC where short-dispersed fibers were admixed to the cementitious matrix, has proven to overcome such limitations. An experimental campaign, aimed at assessing the influence of the fiber-reinforced cementitious matrix, the number of layers, and their anchoring, was performed at the structural laboratory of Carinthia University of Applied Sciences. F/TRC strengthening configurations were tested on real-scale T-beams without internal transversal reinforcement. The results highlight the contribution of the cementitious matrix and hint at the possibility of simply summing its contribution to the one of the textile fabrics, while appropriate end-anchorage seems to improve the performance of both elements.