Strengthening of square reinforced concrete plates with fiber reinforced plastics

This paper presents a reasonable numerical model for reinforced concrete structures strengthened by FRP. Proper constitutive models are introduced to simulate the nonlinear behaviors of reinforced concrete and FRP. The finite element program ABAQUS is used to perform the nonlinear failure analysis of the discussed problems. The validity of proposed material models is verified with experimental data and some strengthening schemes are discussed in detail for engineering applications. It has been shown that the use of fiber-reinforced plastics can significantly increase the stiffness as well as the ultimate strengths of reinforced concrete slabs. In addition, the nonlinearity of FRP in in-plane shear stress-strain relation dose not influence the behavior of such composite slabs, because of the small failure shear strain of the composite plates.