Experimental Study on the Flexural Behavior of over Reinforced Concrete Beams Bolted with Compression Steel Plate: Part I

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the flexural behavior of over-reinforced concrete beam enhancement by bolted-compression steel plate (BCSP) with normal reinforced concrete beams under laboratory experimental condition. Three beams developed with steel plates were tested until they failed in compression compared with one beam without a steel plate. The thicknesses of the steel plates used were 6 mm, 10 mm, and 15 mm. The beams were simply supported and loaded monotonically with two-point loads. Load-deflection behaviors of the beams were observed, analyzed, and evaluated in terms of spall-off concrete loading, peak loading, displacement at mid-span, flexural stiffness (service and post-peak), and energy dissipation. The outcome of the experiment shows that the use of a steel plate can improve the failure modes of the beams and also increases the peak load and flexural stiffness. The steel development beams dissipated much higher energies with an increase in plate thicknesses than the conventional beam.