Structural Reinforced

Concrete Strengthening:
Strengthening Flexural
Members

Terminology (ACI 116 R)

Repair: To replace or correct deteriorated,
damaged or faulty materials, components, or
elements of a structure
Rehabilitation: Process of repairing or
modifying a structure to the desired or useful
condition
Strengthening: Process of increasing the load
resisting capacity of a structure or a portion of
it

Bridge inventory
Over 150,000 bridges
structurally deficient
or functionally
obsolete
3,000 added annually
Increasing traffic
volumes, weights
Aging infrastructure
Over 130,000 bridges
recommended for
replacement, ~$70B

Strengthening methods
No direct design guidelines, no codes,
no standards, no practices for
strengthening technology
Proper analysis is the only way out
Redistributing moments (only with
ultimate-design method, not for WSD)
Active strengthening or Passive
Strengthening

Active and Passive Strengthening

Active
Existing members upgraded to resist both
future (live and superimposed) and present
(dead) loads
Prestressing, Jacking to remove existing
stresses

Passive
Resist only future loads
Reinforcing or strengthening becomes
active only after some deformations have
occurred

Strengthening Concrete
Flexural Members Beams
and Slabs

Flexural Strengthening
Methods
Section enlargement
Adding new members
Adding bolted steel tension
reinforcement
Span shortening
Steel Plate bonding
Composite plate bonding
Reinforcing by post-tensioning

Section Enlargement
Simple, popular
Use of stirrups in
horizontally
drilled holes to
tie new and old
sections
Short dowels
drilled in
Enveloping the
existing beam
by the floor
above

Section enlargement

Stirrups placed in horizontally drilled holes

Section enlargement

Short dowels placed in drilled-in adhesive anchors

Section enlargement

Enveloping the existing beam

Adding new members

For those beams that are grossly
overstressed
Additional members either between the
existing beams or alongside them
Between existing beams
Span reduced, load carrying capacity
increased

Next to existing beams and

interconnecting
Future load on the existing beams will be
shared by the new neighbors

Adding new members

Easier to add structural steel members
than concrete
Steel beams have to maintain
deformational compatibility with the
concrete beams
Loads will be distributed between the new
and existing beams in proportion to their
relative rigidities (EI)
Ensure void free contact between the steel
sections and the old concrete section

Adding new members Rigid

channel

Rigid steel channels Ensures strain compatibility

Adding new members Flexible

channel

Flexible steel channels deflected

downwards
receives some load from the existing

Adding bolted steel tension

reinforcement

Adding bolted steel tension

reinforcement

If the existing beam lacks positive

moment capacity
Add structural steel tension plates or
built-up members bolted to the beam
A passive design new steel does not
become effective until the concrete
deforms under some additional load
Improves beams effective stiffness
also

Span shortening
When a simple span beam is
overstressed in bending, just
shortening the span will help
Loss of space under the beam
Steel better ease of erection

Span Shortening
Original span

New
span

Original span

New
span
Knee
braces

Using additional steel support

Using Knee Braces

Steel plate bonding

Attach steel shapes to concrete beams using
adhesives an alternative to bolting
Can attach unstressed or prestressed plates
Easy, minimum disturbance to existing structure
Workmanship very crucial
Factors to be considered
Thorough surface preparation abrasive blasting,
proper roughening
Epoxy to have a higher bond strength than concrete
Reinforcing plate long and thin enough (thickness
criteria) to avoid brittle plate separation from
concrete

Steel plate bonding

Epoxy needs to be pressed
between substrate and steel
plate to properly develop
bond
Erection anchors, falsework

Supplemental anchors to
prevent de-bonding
Corrosion of steel plate is an
issue
Can contribute to galvanic
action
Coatings not effective
interferes with adhesion

Bonded
Steel plate Epoxy adhesive
Erection anchors and
Supplemental anchors

Factors to be taken care of

Carbon fiber reinforced plastic wraps

and plates

Advantages of FRP

High tensile strength

Low weight
Corrosion resistance
Excellent fatigue behavior
Non-conductive
Speed of construction
Minimum or no use of heavy equipment and lifting
equipment
Ability to apply to many non-flat shapes
Minimum change to dimensions and weight of
strengthened elements
Maintains aesthetics of the structure
Low cost of construction

Considerations and test methods

for various FRP

CFRP strengthening

What is CFRP
Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastics
Carbon fibers in an epoxy / polymer matrix
Carbon fibers are high strength, high
modulus fibers
Manufactured by pultrusion process

CFRP Laminates

What type of strengthening needs?

Laminate manufacture - 1
Carbon fiber fed from a series of spools

Resin bath and rollers to remove excess

resin

Fibers fed through a spacer screen

Laminate strip shaper

Laminate manufacture - 2
Cured and cooled laminate pulled

Laminate rolled

Cut into shapes and sizes

Rolling on the storage spool

Comparing steel and FRP

Mechanical action

Strengthening Principles
Tensile force in FRP generates an
additional moment - increases total
bending capacity
Generally FRP strengthening is
passive
When strengthened in flexure, shear
strengthening also would be needed
Why?

Failure modes
Full composite action when bond is
perfect between FRP and concrete, or
debonding is limited
Loading results in debonding
composite action is lost level of
strengthening is reduced

Failure modes under full composite

action
Steel yielding followed by concrete
crushing
When small amount of FRP added failure in
steel yielding

Steel yielding followed by FRP rupture

Depends on FRP failure strain

Concrete crushing before steel yielding

Large amounts of FRP; steel might not yield

Shear failure
Increase in flexural load capacity exceeds the
original shear capacity

Failure modes under loss of

composite action
Caused by stress concentrations along the
FRP/concrete interface
Shear and tensile stress concentrations induce
local failure at plate end with an inclined crack
Higher loading causes horizontal crack at the
level of steel reinforcement, debonding occurs
Stress concentrations at the bottom of
flexural/shear cracks open, but restrained by
the FRP; concentrated shear stresses result
Crack-induced debonding

Example problem
10 in

18 in

Reinforced concrete beam

3 # 6 bars (1.32 sq.in total area)
fc = 4000 psi
fy = 60,000 psi
CFRP laminate 0.055 in thick, 50
mm wide, cross sectional area
0.11 sq.in
fCFRP = 350 ksi
ECFRP = 20M psi

Determine the increase in moment capacity by the addition of

the
CFRP laminate on the bottom of the beam. What would be the
thickness of a steel plate required to provide the same
increase in moment capacity? Assume the tension steel yields.

Steel plate and CFRP plate bonding

Epoxy or other
glue bonding
Needs bolts for
steel plates
CFRP stirrups
used with steel
plates in some
cases
Shear transfer

Unstressed CFRP plate bonding

RC beam

Adhesive layers
CFRP plate

RC beam

CFRP plate
Lateral support during polymerization

Prestressed CFRP plate

bonding
F
F
Adhesive layers

CFRP plate

Plate bonded to the

beam under external
prestress

Plate prestress applied

and adhesive applied
Plate end
anchorage
(bonded
bolt) fitted
F

Prestress released

CFRP application

Failure of CFRP
Elevated temperature resistance is poor
Flexural
Crushing of concrete or plate rupture
Suggests Ductile behavior of repair Desirable

Local
Debonding
Shear failure of concrete between plate
and the reinforcing steel
Must be avoided
Bond strength is crucial

Failure modes

Concrete crushing or FRP

rupture

End plate debond

Intermediate span debond

Hybrid strengthening
Steel and CFRP combined strengthening

Steel Reinforced Polymers (SRP)

Steel-belted duct tape"
Made from ultra-high strength
twisted steel wires
11 times stronger than a
typical steel plate
ability to easily reinforce the
interior and/or the exterior of
a structure
Ideal for upgrades to steel,
wood, or concrete structures
High strength (up to 8 kips/in)
High modulus (up to 12M psi)
Thin, ductile envelope.

SRP
Occupies an empty niche
between rebar and fiber
Blast resistant applications
Applied in 12-in.-wide bands
on a bed of epoxy, urethane,
polyurea, vinylester or
cement-based adhesive and
sealed with another layer of
the same material
Similar to Ferrocement
Available in low-, mediumand high-density tapes, with
densities ranging from four
wires per in up to 23

Reinforcing by external posttensioning

Also called
external
prestressing
Can be used in
steel, masonry,
timber
structures also
Bridges are
good candidates
for this
strengthening
method

External prestressing
Apply external forces to counteract the
effects of applied loads
Forces delivered by means of external
prestressing tendons located outside the
section
Internal tendons can also be used (not
popular)
Tendons connected to the structure at
anchor joints

Advantages
Possibility of controlling and adjusting the
tendon forces
Inspecting the corrosion protection
Replacing tendons
Absence of tendons inside a web - pouring
of concrete is made easier
No weakening of the compression area due to
ducts - minimum web thickness is achievable.
Angular deviations can be concentrated at
carefully designed saddle locations - thus
eliminating the influence of unintentional
angular changes (wobble effect)

Disadvantages

Corrosion susceptibility
Fire
Vandalism removal of tendons
Avoided by encasing the tendons in
shotcrete after prestressing
Increase in member size

Types of external tendons

Attaching the tendons with

glue

Post-tensioning with FRP sheets

Characteristics of tendons

Internal and external prestressing

Reinforcing beams for shear

Insufficient shear capacities diagonal
cracking from edges to the middle
Two general types of requirements:
Improving shear performance for the same
use
Accommodate new load pattern

Improving shear capacity by

through bolting

Steel plates to improve shear

resistance

Internal passive shear

strengthening
Adding extra shear
reinforcement
Drill holes
perpendicular to
shear cracks
Insert
reinforcement
Grout the holes
with epoxy

Shear strengthening with CFRP

laminates

Bonded shear strengthening

configurations using FRP

FRP wrapped
Entirely around
The beam

FRP U
Wrap

Expensive
Complicated
Drilling holes
needed

Most common
Effective
Highly effective in
positive moment
sections
Shear cracking near
top of slab in neg
moment sections

FRP side
Wraps

Not very
effective due to
anchorage
confines

Shear strengthening using CFRP

FRP as a continuous jacket

Quicker process
Material
wastage
Expensive

FRP in spaced strips

Material
optimization
possible
Akin to external
shear stirrups

Fiber orientation in wrap

0/90 wrap

+/- 45 wrap

Factors influencing shear contribution

of FRP
FRP Stiffness effects
Represented as area fraction f multiplied by Ef
effective FRP failure strain depends on this

Concrete strength effects

Debonding more influenced by the tensile
strength of concrete
Dependence of failure strain on fc2/3

Strengthening configuration
Full wrapping most effective
Side-bonding/U configurations follows

Factors influencing shear

contribution of FRP
Effectiveness of shear strengthening
decreases with an increase in the ratio of
EsAsv/EfAf
Attributed to changes in cracking pattern
Single major crack when no shear
reinforcement
More steel, more cracks
Complete debonding when FRP is
intersected by a larger number of cracks

Shear calculation
Nominal shear strength of a RCC section Vn
= Vc + Vs
For FRP, Vn = Vc + Vs +0.85 Vfrp
Design shear strength = Vn
Shear contribution of FRP is computed by
assuming a shear crack angle of 45
degrees, computing the area of
reinforcement that crosses this potential
crack, and multiplying the area by the
strength of the material

FRP shear calculation

Vs + Vf 8(fc)1/2 bwd

n = number of plies
tf = thickness of a ply

wf = strip width

ffe = effective shear strength

= Rffu where R is a reduction
factor and ffu is the ultimate
shear strength of frp

Maximum FRP Strip spacing

Inclined crack to be intersected by atleast
one set of stirrups
For FRP, it has to provide additional
strengthening also
For instance, if a side bonded FRP
intersects with a crack close to its free
edge, complete debonding can occur
Crack should intersect with FRP father
from its free edge
d f (sin cos
)
Atleast 2 FRP strips crossing
a crack
to be
s f s f max
safe
2

Strengthening one-way slabs

Different from those of beams
Enlarging section is impossible
Easiest method is span shortening add
steel beams at midspan
Can use plate addition using bolting
Plates spaced far apart will start acting as
discrete beams rather than part of the slab
Use of FRP wraps gaining prominence

Bolted steel plates

in x 6 in steel plate, 3 c/c (Negative reinforcing)

in x 6 in steel plate, 3
c/c (Positive reinforcing)

Tunnel slab strengthening

using FRP

Strengthening needed to use the tunnel slab as an

emergency vehicle access
CFRP sheets bonded to the bottom of the slab, serving
as additional bottom tension reinforcement
Overhanging portions of the slab strengthened using
carbon FRP bars epoxy-bonded in grooves on the top
Bars bonded below the surface, thereby avoiding
traffic damage to the externally bonded reinforcement

Strengthening 2-way slabs

General methods used for beams
Intersections interfere with bolted or
bonded steel
2 way slabs rarely fail in flexure develops
a membrane action that substantially
increases their load capacity
External prestressing or post-tensioning can
be used
Similar principles as described earlier

Strengthening cantilevers
Cantilevers
architects
favorites
Falling Water
Frank Lloyd
Wright
7 in deflections in
a 15 ft cantilever
Reason: Insufficient
reinforcing was
installed in the main
first floor cantilever
beams

Strengthening cantilevers
Span shortening
Steel brackets
Diagonal or knee braces