SIMPLIFIED EVALUATION METHOD ON SHEAR STRENGTHENING EFFECTS OF RC BEAM BY U-SHAPED CFRP SHEETS

Abstract

The design method of RC members strengthened by U-shaped CFRP sheets has not yet been established. The aim of this study is to build a simplified evaluation method on the effects of shear strengthening of RC beam by U-shaped sheets. In this method, the failure process of RC member followed by complete debonding of sheet is modeled by evaluating the average strain of respective sheet located in the shear span. The uni-axial tensile test modeling RC member with U-shaped sheet is performed for investigating the adequacy of this method. Finally, the experimental results for the RC beams with U-shaped sheets reveal that this method can evaluate the effects of shear strengthening by the sheet with satisfactory accuracy.