AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY ON STRENGTHENING OF REINFORCED CONCRETE BEAMS USING MINERAL BASED COMPOSITE

The concrete is one of the most important construction materials for structures. There is a need for repairing and rehabilitation to strengthen the structures. Strengthening concrete structures is retrofitting. The retrofitting is done by wrapping and strengthening the concrete surface by Glass Fiber Reinforced Polymer shee t (GFRP) using binders. This paper presents the study of flexure deficient, shear deficient and retrofitted preloaded reinforced concrete beams. Retrofitting is carried out by binding U - wrapped GFRP sheet in Flexure and U - wrapped inclined strips in shear r egion. binder are used namely epoxy and cementitious composites. Epoxies have a good bonding capacity and also good approach to strengthen the structures, but have some disadvantages in the form of incompatibilities with the base concrete. Mineral based c omposites are being used. The results focused are ultimate load, maximum deflection and crack pattern of control, flexure deficient, shear deficient and preloaded retrofitted beams. From the result, concluded that the load carrying capacity is enhanced in retrofitted beams. In retrofitted shear deficient beams brittle type of shear failure mode is shifted to ductile flexure failure with the development of flexure cracks. It is also inferred that the ultimate load taken by the preloaded FRP wrapped eams are more as compared to control beam.