Description
The potential of a new carbon fibre reinforced polymer (CFRP) bar is explored for the simultaneous flexural and shear strengthening of reinforced concrete (RC) beams. This bar has a stick geometric configuration, with a part applied according to the near surface mounted (NSM) technique and the other according to the embedded through section (ETS) technique, both connected with a smooth transition zone. The NSM part aims to increase the flexural capacity of the RC element, while the ETS part, inclined at 45-degrees relative to the RC beam’s axis, provides shear strengthening and avoids premature end debonding and rip-off failures modes to the NSM part. To avoid premature rupture of the transition zone of this bar, CFRP anchor are applied in the critical regions of the beam. An experimental program with almost real scale RC beams, subjected to a four-point bending test configuration, was executed to demonstrate the efficiency of this strengthening technique. The experimental results reveal that the RC beam strengthened using this innovative CFRP bar and technique exhibited an impressive threefold increase in load carrying capacity when compared to a reference RC beam, and ensured high deflection performance.
