Experimental Investigations of the Bending Fatigue Performance of TRC-Strengthened RC Beams in Conventional and Aggressive Chlorate Environments
Publication: Journal of Composites for Construction
Volume 20, Issue 2
Abstract
To study the fatigue performance of a reinforced-concrete (RC) beam strengthened with textile-reinforced concrete (TRC), a four-point bending fatigue test was conducted, in which the strengthening forms, reinforcement ratio, textile ratio, static load damage, and sustained load corrosion were considered. The results of this test show that TRC can modify the fatigue failure mode and significantly improve the fatigue life of RC beams. The strengthened beams exhibited better performance than the unstrengthened beams with regard to controlling cracks. TRC can increase the number of cracks and decrease the crack width in RC beams, and the strengthened beams exhibit an increase in midspan deflection that rapidly progresses, while the unstrengthened beams do not exhibit this progression. In terms of improving the fatigue life of beams, the single-sided strengthening form is shown to perform better than the three-sided form, and a beam with a high reinforcement ratio is superior to that with a low ratio. The textile ratio is also shown to influence the fatigue life of the RC beam: when the textile ratio is low, the strengthened and unstrengthened beams have nearly identical fatigue lives; however, when the ratio reaches a given value, the fatigue life of the strengthened beams increases with an increasing textile ratio. Also, TRC performs better when used to strengthen damaged beams, and the damage degree influences the fatigue life of a beam strengthened with TRC. However, the fatigue life of strengthened beams will be reduced if the static-damage degree is high. In addition, in a chlorate environment, corrosion or a sustained load acting alone reduces the fatigue life of strengthened beams, and the initial deformation generated by a sustained load also affects the fatigue life. The effect becomes more evident when corrosion and a sustained load are present concurrently. It was also found that corrosion weakens the bond between the TRC and the original concrete, resulting in damage to the interface between the TRC and the strengthened beams. The ratio of the realistic stiffness to the computed stiffness was proposed to judge the safety of the strengthened beams under a fatigue load.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Acknowledgments
The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support from the Program of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51478458), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2014QNA79). The experimental work described in this paper was conducted at the Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Environmental impact and Structural Safety in Civil Engineering in the China University of Mining and Technology. Help during the testing from staffs and students at the Laboratory are greatly acknowledged.
References
Al-Salloum, Y. A., Siddiqui, N. A., Elsanadedy, H. M., Abadel, A. A., and Aqel, M. A. (2011). “Textile-reinforced mortar versus FRP as strengthening material for seismically deficient RC beam-column joints.” J. Compos. Constr., 920–933.
Babaeidarabad, S., Loreto, G., and Nanni, A. (2014). “Flexural strengthening of RC beams with an externally bonded fabric-reinforced cementitious matrix.” J. Compos. Constr., 04014009.
Bournas, D. A., Lontou, P. V., Papanicolaou, C. G., and Triantafillou, T. C. (2007). “Textile-reinforced mortar versus fiber-reinforced polymer confinement in reinforced concrete columns.” ACI Struct. J., 104(6), 740–748.
Bruckner, A., Ortlepp, R., and Curbach, M. (2006). “Textile reinforced concrete for strengthening in bending and shear.” Mater. Struct., 39(8), 741–748.
Bruckner, A., Wellner, S., Ortlepp, R., Scheerer, S., and Curbach, M. (2013). “T-beams strengthened with TRC under non predominantly static loading.” Beton- und Stahlbetonbau, 108(3), 169–178.
Chinese National Standards. (2010). “Code for design of concrete structures.” GB 50010-2010, China Architecture and Building Press, Beijing (in Chinese).
Elsanadedy, H. M., Almusallam, T. H., Alsayed, S. H., and Al-Salloum, Y. A. (2013). “Flexural strengthening of RC beams using textile reinforced mortar—Experimental and numerical study.” Compos. Struct., 97, 40–55.
Gopinath, S., Murthy, A. R., Iyer, N. R., and Prabha, M. (2015). “Behaviour of reinforced concrete beams strengthened with basalt textile reinforced concrete.” J. Ind. Text., 44(6), 924–933.
Harajli, M., EIKhatib, H., and Tomas San-Jose, J. (2011). “Static and cyclic out-of-plane response of masonry walls strengthened using textile-mortar system.” J. Mater. Civ. Eng., 1171–1180.
Hegger, J., and Voss, S. (2008). “Investigations on the bearing behaviour and application potential of textile reinforced concrete.” Eng. Struct., 30(7), 2050–2056.
Ludovico, M. D., Prota, A., and Manfredi, G. (2010). “Structural upgrade using basalt fibers for concrete confinement.” J. Compos. Constr., 541–552.
Mechtcherine, V. (2013). “Novel cement-based composites for the strengthening and repair of concrete structures.” Constr. Build. Mater., 41, 365–373.
Ombres, L. (2014). “Concrete confinement with a cement based high strength composite material.” Compos. Struct., 109, 294–304.
Pourasee, A., Peled, A., and Weiss, W. J. (2011). “Fluid transport in cracked fabric reinforced cement based composites.” J. Mater. Civ. Eng., 1227–1238.
Schladitz, F., and Curbach, M. (2012). “Torsion tests on textile-reinforced concrete strengthened specimens.” Mater. Struct., 45(1), 31–40.
Schladitz, F., Frenzel, M., Ehlig, D., and Manfred, C. (2012). “Bending load capacity of reinforced concrete slabs strengthened with textile reinforced concrete.” Eng. Struct., 40, 317–326.
Si Larbi, A., Contamine, R., Ferrier, E., and Hamelin, P. (2010). “Shear strengthening of RC beams with textile reinforced concrete (TRC) plate.” Construct. Build. Mater., 24(10), 1928–1936.
Triantafillou, T. C., Papanicolaou, C. G., Zissimopoulos, P., and Laourdekis, T. (2006). “Concrete confinement with textile-reinforced mortar jackets.” ACI Struct. J., 103(1), 28–37.
Weiland, S., Ortlepp, R., Brückner, A., and Curbach, M. (2007). “Strengthening of RC structures with textile reinforced concrete (TRC).” Thin fiber and textile reinforced cementitious systems, C. M. Aldea, ed., ACSE, Reston, VA, 157–172.
Xu, S. L., Yin, S. P., and Cai, X. H. (2011). “Investigation on the flexural behavior of reinforced concrete beam strengthened with textile-reinforced concrete.” Chin. Civ. Eng. J., 44(4), 23–35.
Yin, S. P., Xu, S. L., and Lv, H. L. (2014). “Flexural behavior of reinforced concrete beams with TRC tension zone cover.” J. Mater. Civ. Eng., 320–330.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Composites for Construction
Volume 20 • Issue 2 • April 2016
Copyright
© 2015 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Mar 3, 2015
Accepted: Jul 13, 2015
Published online: Sep 8, 2015
Discussion open until: Feb 8, 2016
Published in print: Apr 1, 2016
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.