Parametric Study for Prestressed Reinforced Concrete Beams Strengthened with Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer Laminates

Abstract

This research presents a parametric study and a design guideline for the flexural strength of prestressed concrete girders strengthened by CFRP sheet adopting the ACI 318-08, AASHTO LRFD (2004) and ACI committee 440 (2002) procedure. A three-dimensional nonlinear finite element analysis has been used to conduct a numerical investigation on the general behavior of strengthened beams up to failure. ANSYS V. 10.0 software was utilized in this work. Parametric studies are carried out to study the effect of compressive strength of concrete, number of layers of CFRP systems, type of CFRP systems and both type and number of layers of CFRP systems on the behavior of prestressed concrete girders and the load carrying capacity. The design method suggested by ACI 440R-02, the modified equation of ACI 318-08 and AASHTO LRFD (2004) is evaluated based on a comparison made along with previous experimental and with finite element analysis results; these design methods are in a good agreement with results and can be adopted to calculate ultimate capacity of prestressed concrete beams strengthened with CFRP laminates.