Low velocity impact behavior of shear deficient RC beam strengthened with CFRP strips

Many methods are developed for strengthening of reinforced concrete structural members against the effects of shear. One of the commonly used methods in recent years is turned out to be bonding of fiber reinforced polymers (FRP). Impact loading is one of the important external effects on the reinforced concrete structural members during service period among the others. The determination of magnitude, the excitation time, deformations and stress due to impact loadings are complicated and rarely known. In recent year impact behavior of reinforced concrete members have been researched with experimental studies by using drop-weight method and numerical simulations are done by using finite element method. However the studies on the strengthening of structural members against impact loading are very seldom in the literature. For this reason, in this study impact behavior of shear deficient reinforced concrete beams that are strengthened with carbon fiber reinforced polymers (CFRP) strips are investigated experimentally. Compressive strength of concrete, CFRP strips spacing and impact velocities are taken as the variables in this experimental study. The acceleration due to impact loading is measured from the specimens, while velocities and displacements are calculated from these measured accelerations. RC beams are modeled with ANSYS software. Experimental result and simulations result are compared. Experimental result showed that impact behaviors of shear deficient RC beams are positively affected from the strengthening with CFRP strip. The decrease in the spacing of CFRP strips reduced the acceleration, velocity and displacement values measured from the test specimens.