Repair of historic stone pagoda: Flexural behavior of granite reinforced with stainless steel bars

Abstract

In the stone-made architectural heritage, one of the most widely used stones is granite. Given its superior material properties and abundant reserves, most Korean stone pagodas were built using granite. For the repair and restoration of the ancient stone pagoda made of granite, understanding of the structural behavior of reinforced granite is crucial. In this study, flexure tests for seven simply supported full-scale granite reinforced with stainless steel bars were conducted to investigate the failure mode and load–displacement relationship. Through the experiments, the feasibility of the suggested method for reinforcement of the damaged granite was also explored. Test specimens were manufactured after injecting epoxy resin by inserting stainless steel bars into the drilled holes, and then each granite substrate was bonded with adhesive epoxy resin. The test results showed that the load–displacement relationship of reinforced granite was highly dependent on the presence of the reinforcement, positioning of the reinforcing bars, and bond capacity of the reinforcing bars. Also, reinforcing bars significantly affected the deformation of the reinforced granite. Based on the test results, four distinct flexural responses of reinforced granite are presented.