The Size Effect of the Shear Strengths of Reinforced Concrete Beams Strengthened with Carbon FRP

CFRP로 전단보강된 철근콘크리트 보의 크기효과

Presented are the results of recent tests on diagonal shear failure of reinforced concrete beams which are externally reinforced in the transverse direction by a unidirectional carbon fiber reinforced polymer, instead of the traditional steel stirrups. Three different series of the beams with different shear reinforcements, i.e. U-wrapping with carbon sheet, U-wrapping with carbon strips and full wrapping with carbon strips were tested. Those beams were geometrically similar, and the size range is 1:1.9:4. The failure of the beams are characterized by delamination, crushing of concrete and distributed shear cracks. It is found that the size effect is much weaker than that of the reference beams without CFRP. Therefore CFRP sheet may be used as the transverse reinforcement with a minor size effect. However, it is not clear that the same conclusion can be drawn in other sizes. Further researches are recommended.