ONE-DIMENSIONAL STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS OF REINFORCED CONCRETE BEAM STRENGTHENED WITH CFRP

Abstract

Currently, the need for structural rehabilitation has become ever more frequent. Several rehabilitation methods have been developed and applied since the concrete genesis. As an alternative to traditional methods, a new conception of advanced composite materials for strengthening structures has emerged recently. These composite materials are usually made of carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP). The advantages of such materials as compared to the traditional ones are their high specific strength and stiffness, high corrosion and fatigue resistance, besides the ease to apply. The aim of this study is the one-dimensional modeling, through the Finite Element Method, of reinforced concrete bi-supported beams with and without reinforcement, found in the literature. The mechanical behaviors of concrete and steel are described by constitutive models based on the Continuum Damage Mechanics theory, and CFRP is simulated by a linear elastic model. The nonlinear analyzes are performed using the Arc Length method with Newton - Raphson iterative procedure. From the comparison between the numerical and experimental results, the proposed modeling has potentiality in the analysis of reinforced concrete structures with CFRP, due to its reduced complexity and low computational cost. Keywords: Damage Mechanics, Concrete, Beam, CFRP.