Performance of composite stone beams with prestressed NSM longitudinal CFRP reinforcement subjected to bending

This paper presents an investigation on the performance of stone beams reinforced with prestressed near-surface mounted (NSM) longitudinal carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) bars subjected to bending. Seven composite stone beams and four bare ones were tested. The test variables included the reinforcement ratio and prestressing level of CFRP bars, and the shear span to depth ratio of the tested beams. Test results showed that, the composite stone beams with either prestressed or non-prestressed reinforcement exhibited a ductile failure with visible deflection and multiple cracks. As the level of prestressing force increased, the cracking load and the shear capacity of composite stone beams increased but the deformation capacity decreased. The increase in rein-forcement ratio could suppress the crack propagation and increase the flexural capacity of composite stone beams. As the shear span to depth ratio decreased, the cracking load, the shear capacity, and the peak load corresponding to flexural capacity of composite stone beams increased accordingly. Theoretical models for predicting the cracking and peak moments of composite stone beams were developed based on sectional me-chanical analysis, and a good agreement with the experimental results was obtained.