Flexural Behavior and Ductility of Concrete Beams Strengthened with Near-Surface Mounted GFRP Bars

The objective of this study is to investigate the flexural behaviors and ductility of reinforced concrete beam with near-surface mounted (NSM) GFRP bars. A total of 5, simply supported rectangular cross-section beams strengthened with NSM GFRP bars and two control beams are tested in this paper. The mode of failure, load-deflection relationship, strain distributions along the height of the beam on mid-span cross-section, and ductility of the beams are analyzed. The studies indicate that the yield and ultimate load have a significant increase compared with the control specimen. Especially, the ultimate load has a more measurable improvement than the yield load. The strain distribution along the height of specimen shows a clear nonlinear characteristic as a result of the crack propagating and steel yield. Also, the studies show that GFRP bars has played an important role in the flexural capacity of the strengthened beam during the stage from the yield to the failure of the beam. Besides, the strengthened beam is considered to be ductile using the displacement ductility index.