Fracture toughness of RC beams on the shear, strengthening by FRCM system

Abstract

This research paper present the experimental study of reinforce concrete beams strengthened by FRCM system in the shear area. All samples are without transverse reinforcement at the shear distance. First beams tested as control sample, with shear distance a/d=2. Another three beams tested with strengthening by FRCM system. Variable parameter is the level of initial load, before strengthening. The initial load values were 0, 0.3, 0.5 from carrying capacity of control samples. All RC beams were designed to fail in shear, even strengthened samples. In the result of this research we determined that fracture toughness of RC beams increases with a decrease of span to the effective depth ratio. Results are comparable with the increasing of bearing capacity. The first inclined crack opend in mid-height cross section at the load 50 kN at an angle equal to 450 and it does not depend on the shear span. The maximum width of inclined cracks decrease with decreasing of shear span. The maximum width of inclined cracks decrease with decreasing of the shear span. The maximum values of width of inclined cracks are fixed at the value of 0.55 - 0.85 mm. Using the limit crack opening width as criteria of exhaustion of serviceability (SLS) we saw that about 16 - 29% of bearing capacity still remains before the danger of shear failure of the beam.