STRENGTHENING OF CORRODED REINFORCED CONCRETE BEAMS EXPOSED TO TORSIONAL AND FLEXURAL STRESSES

Corrosion of steel reinforcement is one of the main durability threating problems for reinforced concrete infrastructures worldwide. In this paper, an experimental study is performed to investigate the effects of corrosion of steel reinforcement on behavior of beams with three different percentage of corrosion (2.5%, 5%, and 7.5%), the experimental study investigates the effects of using carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) and glass fiber reinforced polymer (GFRP) for strengthening corroded reinforced concrete beams with 5% corrosion only. Eighteen beams are divided into three sets, each set consists of one beam specimen is neither corroded nor strengthened to serve as reference, three beams are corroded to serve as corroded control, and the remaining two beams are corroded and strengthened with CFRP or GFR for each. All beam specimens are 100×200×2000 mm with main steel reinforcement 2Ø 12. Accelerated corrosion pool is used for the accelerated corrosion process. The results show that the load carrying capacity and torsional moment of the beam is higher, but deflection and angle of twist is lower for control beams compared to corroded beams. Strengthening beams with CFRP is more effective than strengthening beams with GFRP. The number of cracks developed is more in case of control beams compared to corroded beams, but as the rate of corrosion increases the crack width increases in corroded beams compared to control beams.