CICE 2010 - The 5th International Conference on FRP Composites in Civil Engineering September 27-29, 2010, Beijing, China

Effectiveness of U-Shaped CFRP Wraps as End Anchorages in Predominant Flexure and Shear Region
A. A. R. Khan (asadkhan@neduet.edu.pk) & Tehmina Ayub Department of Civil Engineering, NED University of Engineering and Technology, Karachi, Pakistan

ABSTRACT U-shaped external anchorage have been used to enhance the shear resistance and performance of RC beams strengthened by externally bonded CFRP plates but the reported results are not adequate yet to draw rational conclusions. One factor that could affect the ultimate strength and mode of failure is the depth of the end anchorage used. Varying end anchorage depths were considered in this study to investigate the effectiveness of U-shaped end anchorages along with determining ultimate load carrying capacity and failure modes of strengthened beams in predominant flexure and shear loading regions. Full depth U-shaped anchorages at plate cut-off points were found to be effective in strengthened RC beams in the predominant shear loading region while depth of the end anchorage was not found to be factor that affects the load carrying capacity of the strengthened RC beams. KEY WORDS

INTRODUCTION

Strengthening of RC beams in flexure and shear with FRP materials is a fascinating domain for researchers to observe the structural behaviour. Many studies across the world are conducted to study structural behaviour of RC beams with FRP laminates and strip bonded to the tensile face of the RC beam and subjected to shear and/ or flexural dominant loading regimes. Prior to strengthening in flexure, shear capacity of the beams must be checked as increase in the flexural capacity after strengthening may lead to more severe as well as undesirable shear failure. Use of CFRP strip with end anchorages is one of the practically efficient strengthening techniques used to strengthen RC beams in flexure and shear respectively (Khan & Ayub 2009a, b). Appropriate positioning of CFRP wraps throughout the beam length does not only enhance the load carrying capacity of the beam but it also improves the performance of strengthened beams by avoiding debonding/ delamination of strip prematurely (Khan & Ayub 2009b). Uji (1992) and Sato et al. (1996) carried out tests on rectangular RC beams strengthened in shear by CFRP and concluded that fibre-reinforced polymer (FRP) wraps used as anchorages can improve the capacity of rectangular beam sections having less shear capacity than flexural capacity or require added load capacity and can also modify the failure mode of the strengthened RC beams under predominant shear forces from brittle to ductile. According to Bencardino et al. (2007), bonding a CFRP laminate without end anchorages to the tension face of RC beams, weak in shear, is not an adequate structural solution either to increase their load carrying

capacity or to change their mode of failure. Reinforced concrete members strengthened in bending by bonding of FRP may fail due to failure of material (reinforcing steel, concrete and composite material) or failure of the interface between concrete adhesive or adhesive-FRP. Experimental results confirm that in most cases delamination prevails over the other possible rupture modes (Casas & Pascual 2007). These delamination failure modes can be classified into two main types: due to high interfacial stresses near plate ends and due to flexural or flexural-shear crack (intermediate crack) away from the plate ends (Teng et al. 2003). The endeavor of this paper is on investigating the effectiveness of U-shaped anchorages on ultimate load carrying capacities, failure modes and performance evaluation of normal and strengthened RC beams in predominant flexure and shear loadings by varying depth of U-shaped anchorages provided at the ends.

2 EXPERIMENTAL PROGRAM
Beams were cast into two groups: Group A and Group B. Each group have total of three beams including one control beam. All beams were 1800 mm long having 150 mm 200 mm cross section and were cast by mixing cement, fine aggregates and coarse aggregates with a mix proportion of 1:2:4 and water cement ratio of 0.5. All beams were detailed with two 12 mm dia. bars as tension reinforcement, two 6 mm dia. bars as hanger reinforcement and 6 mm dia. mild bar spaced at 100 mm uniformly throughout beam length. One beam of each group, serving as control beam, was tested to failure with loading spans of 550 mm and

L. Ye et al. (eds.), Advances in FRP Composites in Civil Engineering Tsinghua University Press, Beijing and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2011

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Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on FRP Composites in Civil Engineering

400 mm respectively. All beams were strengthened with CFRP strips and wraps, and tested under four point bending with same loading span as that of control beams. Material Properties of concrete, steel, CFRP strip and wrap are shown in Table 1. Nomenclature of all strengthened beams is described in Table 2, whereas strengthening detail and experimental program is shown in Figure 1.
Table 1 Material properties Materials Concrete Material Properties Compressive Strength f cc (MPa) Long. Steel Yield Strength f y (MPa) Stirrup Steel Yield Strength f y (MPa) Steel CFRP Strip Stirrup diameter (mm) Thickness (mm) Width (mm) Ultimate tensile strength (MPa) Youngs modulus (GPa) CFRP Wrap Thickness (mm) Ultimate tensile strength (MPa) Youngs modulus (GPa) Table 2 Nomenclature of strengthened beams Loading Span Beam ID A1 Description Beam strengthened with CFRP strip and full depth anchors (anchor height = 200 mm) Beam strengthened with CFRP strip and Partial depth anchors (anchor height = 150 mm) Beam strengthened with CFRP strip and Partial depth anchors (anchor height = 100 mm) Beam strengthened with CFRP strip and full depth anchors (anchor height = 200 mm) Beam strengthened with CFRP strip and Partial depth anchors (anchor height = 150 mm) Beam strengthened with CFRP strip and Partial depth anchors (anchor height =100 mm) 20.7 420 318 6 1.4 50 2500 150 0.117 3800 240

prominent diagonal tension crack starting from the support and moving towards the load.
300/ 600 (mm) 550/ 400 (mm) 200 mm 200 mm CFRP wraps as end anchorage Carbon Fiber Strip 1400 mm 300 mm 50 mm

(a) Beam A1/ Beam B1

300/ 600 (mm) 550/ 400 (mm) 200 mm 200 mm CFRP wraps as end anchorage Carbon Fiber Strip 1400 mm 300 mm 50 mm

150

(b) Beam A2/ Beam B2

300/ 600 (mm) 550/ 400 (mm) 200 mm 200 mm CFRP wraps as end anchorage Carbon Fiber Strip 1400 mm 300 mm 50 mm

100

(c) Beam A3/ Beam B3

Figure 1 Strengthening schemes of beams

Group 550 mm A (a/d= 3.08)

A2

A3

B1

Group 400 mm B (a/d= 2.46)

B2

B3

3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

Load carrying capacities of control and strengthened beams for both the groups are summarized in Table 3. Control beam of group A failed at a load of 79 kN in conventional ductile flexure mode with yielding of the main reinforcing steel, where as control beam of group B failed at a load of 93 kN in pure shear mode with a

Beams A1, A2 and A3 of Group A, strengthened with CFRP strip and anchor heights of 200 mm, 150 mm and 100 mm respectively, failed in conventional ductile flexure mode with yielding of the main reinforcing steel followed by crushing of concrete and carried an additional load of 26 kN, 36 kN and 28 kN respectively (33%, 46% and 35% increase in load carrying capacity). It was observed in the case of all the beams of Group A that failure was initiated by extensive flexural cracking in the flexure zone leading to delamination of the CFRP strip. This is also reflected by sudden drop in load carrying capacity in load-deflection curves shown in Figure 2. A very marginal difference in load carrying capacities of strengthened beams is noticed indicating that the depth of end anchorages has no significant effect on the load carrying capacities and failure modes of strengthened beams. Beam B1, strengthened with CFRP strip and anchor height of 200 mm, failed in conventional ductile flexure mode with yielding of the main reinforcing steel followed by crushing of concrete and carried an additional load of 4 kN, showing a marginal increase in load carrying capacity. Presence of end anchorages helped transform the failure mode from brittle to ductile. It was observed that failure was initiated by extensive flexural cracking in the flexure zone leading to delamination of the CFRP strip. Beam B2, strengthened with CFRP strip and anchor

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height of 150 mm, failed in mixed flexure and shear mode and carried an additional load of 37 kN, showing 40% increase in load carrying capacity. Extensive flexural cracking in the flexure zone was observed near failure but failure was ultimately due to the shear cracks in the portion above the end anchorage. The failure was transforming to flexure mode due to the presence of end anchorages but excessive shear cracking in the shear span led to the shear failure of concrete at end anchorages as can be seen in Figure 3.

Beam B3, strengthened with CFRP strip and anchor height of 100 mm, failed in pure shear mode and carried an additional load of 24 kN (26% increase in load carrying capacity). Failure was due to the shear cracking in the shear span especially in the portion above the end anchorage. Shear failure of beam was indicative of the fact that end anchorages of smaller depths are not enough in predominant shear loading regions. Load-deflection curves for all strengthened beams are shown in Figures 2, 3. It is clear from all the curves that there is a sudden drop in load carrying capacity of beams indicating that failures were initiated by delamination of either CFRP strips and/or wraps caused by excessive flexure, shear or flexure-shear cracking. In the case of Group A beams it was excessive flexural cracking in the flexure zone whereas in the case of Group B beams it was excessive flexure, shear or flexure-shear cracking depending on the height of end anchorage.

4 CONCLUSIONS
The main conclusions drawn from this study are summarized as follows: (1) U-shaped anchorages provided at ends and at midspan improved the structural performance of the RC beams strengthened with externally bonded CFRP strips through enhanced strength and greater ductility as can be seen in the case of all the beams. (2) Observed mode of failure was pure flexure in the case of Group A beams while it varied from flexure to flexure-shear and pure shear in the case of Group B beams. (3) In the case of beams of Group A U-shaped anchorages, irrespective of their heights, allowed the concrete in the compression zone to reach its ultimate strain capacity leading to crushing of concrete in compression indicating that height of end anchorages does not affect the load carrying capacities and failure modes in predominant flexural loading regions. (4) In the case of beams of Group B full depth U-shaped anchorages at plate cut-off points were found to be most effective in strengthened RC beams in the predominant shear loading region. It is therefore recommended that in predominant shear loading regions full depth anchorages are used to avoid premature and brittle failure modes.

Figure 2 Load deflection curves of group A beams

Figure 3 Load deflection curves group B beams Table 3 Ultimate failure loads of beams Beams Control Group A A1 A2 A3 Control Group B B1 B2 B3 Experimental Failure Load (kN) 79 105 115 107 93 97 130 117 Increase in ultimate load after strengthening (%) 32.9 45.6 35.4 4.3 39.8 25.8

5 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The authors are indebted to the Department of Civil Engineering at NED University of Engineering & Technology, Karachi, Pakistan and the University itself, in the pursuit of this work.

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Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on FRP Composites in Civil Engineering Performance of RC Beams Strengthened by CFRP Plates. Proceedings of Asia-Pacific Conference on FRP in Structures (APFIS 2009), 9 - 11 December 2009, Seoul, Korea. Sato, Y., Ueda, T., Kakuta Y. & Tanaka T. 1996. Shear reinforcing effect of carbon fibre sheet attached to side of reinforced concrete beams. Advanced composite material in bridges and structures: 621-627. Uji, K. 1992. Improving shear capacity of existing reinforced concrete members by applying carbon fiber sheets. Transactions of the Japan Concrete Institute 14: 253-266. Teng, J. G., Chen, J.F., Smith, S.T. and Lam, L. (2003). Behaviour and strength of FRP-strengthened RC structures: a state-ofthe-art review. Proceeding of Institute of Civil Engineering, Structures and Buildings 156(1): 51-62.

REFERENCES
Bencardino, F., Spadea, G. & Swamy R.N. 2007. The problem of shear in RC beams strengthened with CFRP laminates. Construction and Building Materials 21(11): 1997-2006. Casas, J.R. & Pascual, J. 2007. Debonding of FRP in bending: Simplified model and experimental validation. Construction and Building Materials 21: 1940-1949. Khan, A. R. & Ayub, T. 2009a. Performance of RC Beams Strengthened in Shear by Externally Bonded U-shaped Wraps. Proceedings of 1st International Conference on Sustainable Built Environment Infrastructure in Developing Countries (1st SBEIDCO), 12-14 October, 2009, Oran, Algeria. Khan, A. R. & Ayub, T. 2009b. Role of U-shaped Anchorages on