Experimental Study on Flexural Behavior of Pre- Loaded RC T- Beam Strengthened with CFRP Laminate under NSM Technique

The RC structures are subjected to several loads under adverse environmental conditions, which may cause the structures to deteriorate before their designed service life. In such circumstances, dismantling and rebuilding the structure is a time-consuming and costly operation. As a result, in order to increase the serviceability of the RC structure and satisfy design criteria, the structures are reinforced with CFRP composites. The current experimental effort attempts to study the flexural behavior of pre-loaded Reinforced concrete T- beams strengthened with CFRP strips under NSM Technique with different orientation of CFRP strips i.e., horizontal and vertical. In comparison with control beams, the working and ultimate loads of T-beams strengthened with NSMLV and NSMLH technique enhanced by up to 23.69% and 25.43% respectively. The load deflection behavior and failure mechanisms of all reinforced and control T-beams are also investigated. The percentage of quantity of CFRP laminates used in NSMLH technique was almost double than that in the NSMLV technique. Hence the NSMLV technique is more economically then NSMLH technique. The deflection at the failure load in the NSMLV reinforced beams was more than two to three times that at the working load, indicating that the requisite level of deflection ductility was reached.