Performance of externally strengthened RC beams with side-bonded CFRP sheets

The conventional method of strengthening reinforced concrete (RC) beams in flexure is via bonding carbon-fiber reinforcement polymer (CFRP) laminates to the beam's soffit. However, the beam's soffit could be narrow or inaccessible for strengthening. To overcome such obstacles, this paper explores the feasibility of strengthening RC beams in flexure by side-bonded CFRP composite sheets. Accordingly, a total of nine RC beams have been cast, eight of which were strengthened in flexure with different configurations of bottom-bonded and side-bonded CFRP sheets, and tested under four-point bending fill failure. The load-deflection response curves, failure modes, and ductility of the tested specimens were recorded and compared. Overall, it is observed that specimens strengthened with similar amount of reinforcement are comparable with percent increase in the flexural strength over the control beam ranged from 62 to 92% for bottom-bonded and 39.7-93.4% for side-bonded strengthened beams. In addition, an analytical model based on ACI 440.2R-08 guidelines is developed and the predicted flexural strength was in good agreement with experimental results with differences ranging between 2.4% and 6.8%. It is concluded that the proposed side-bonded strengthening scheme is a valid alternative to the bottom-bonded scheme of strengthening of RC beams in flexure.