Shear-strengthening of reinforced & prestressed concrete beams using FRP: Part I — Review of previous research

Fiber-Reinforced Polymers (FRP) are used to enhance the behavior of structural components in either shear or flexure. The research conducted in this paper was mainly focused on the shear-strengthening of reinforced and prestressed concrete beams using FRP. The main objective of the research was to identify the parameters affecting the shear capacity provided by FRP and evaluate the accuracy of analytical models. A review of prior experimental data showed that the available analytical models used to estimate the added shear capacity of FRP struggle to provide a unified design equation that can predict accurately the shear contribution of externally applied FRP. In this study, the ACI 440.2R-081 model and the model developed by Triantafillou and Antonopoulos2 were compared with the prior experimental data. Both analytical models failed to provide a satisfactory prediction of the FRP shear capacity. This study provides insights into potential reasons for the unsatisfactory prediction.