Abstract
The main objective of the research reported in this paper was to present an experimental and analytical study for the effect of external strengthening by CFRP laminates on the behavior of beams containing tensile reinforcement lap splices such as ultimate load, ductility and mode of failure. To meet the objective, seventeen NSC beam specimens were tested with cross section of (200x300) mm and overall length 2100mm. Each beam was designed with bars spliced in a constant moment region at midspan. The variables used in the investigation were bar size, presence of transverse reinforcement in the splice region and strengthening scheme by CFRP laminates. From the experimental study the results show that the use of CFRP sheet to upgrade the R.C beams containing tensile reinforcement lap splices has significant effect on the behavior of these beams such as ultimate load, cracking load, deflection and mode of failure where the percent increase in ultimate load was about (11-47)% and with elimination the possibility of the brittle failure. Analytically, three dimensional finite element were used to analyze these members by nonlinear solution technique. ANSYS computer program (version 9.0, 2004) was performed throughout this study. Eight-node brick element has been used to model concrete, two node link element has been used to model steel reinforcement and four node shell element was used to model CFRP straps. The bond between steel reinforcement and concrete has been modeled by using two-node contact element (CONTAC52). The comparison between the experimental and analytical results referred to reasonable agreement and asserted the validity of the numerical analysis and methodology developed in this study with difference by about 10% for ultimate load and 16% for maximum deflection with good estimation for mode of failure
