Flexural strengthening of RCC beams using FRPs and ferrocement - a comparative study

This paper deals with a comparative study among three different rehabilitation techniques, namely, (i) carbon fibre reinforced polymer (CFRP), (ii) glass fibre reinforced polymer (GFRP) and (iii) ferrocement on the flexural strengthening of reinforced cement concrete (RCC) beams. As these different techniques have to be compared on a level playing field, tensile coupon tests have been carried out initially for GFRP, CFRP and ferrocement and the number of layers required in each of these composites in terms of the tensile strength. It was found that for the selected constituents of the composites, one layer of CFRP was equivalent to three layers of GFRP and five layers of wire mesh reinforcement in ferrocement. Rehabilitation of RCC beams using these equivalent laminates shows that all the three composites performed in a similar way and are comparable. The parameters selected in this study were (i) the strengthening material and (ii) the level of pre-distress induced to the beams prior to the rehabilitation. It was noticed that, as the levels of pre-distress decreases, the percentage attainment of flexural capacity and flexural stiffness of the rehabilitated beams increases for all the three selected composites used for rehabilitation. Load-deflection behavior, failure modes, energy absorption capacity, displacement ductility and curvature ductility were compared among these composites and at different distress levels for each composite. The results indicate that ferrocement showed a better performance in terms of ductility than other FRPs, and between the FRPs, GFRP exhibited a better ductility than the CFRP counterpart.