Strengthening/repair
of existing
reinforced concrete structures has become one of the important
issues in the
field of civil engineering. Corrosion of
reinforcement in Oman
and the Middle East region is a serious problem and is the main cause of
concrete structures deterioration costing millions of dollars even though the
majority of such structures are at the early age of their expected service
life. This paper presents the experimental results of damaged/repaired
reinforced concrete beams. The experimental program consisted of reinforced
concrete rectangular beam specimens reinforced with flexural reinforcement only
without shear reinforcement and exposed to accelerated corrosion. The corrosion
rate was varied between 5 to 7.5% which represents loss in cross sectional area
of the steel reinforcement in the tension side. Damaged beams were repaired by
bonding Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) U-straps and in some by CFRP
sheets to the tension side to restore the strength loss due to corrosion. Test
results showed that it is possible to use external shear reinforcement to
enhance the strength of damaged concrete beams. In addition, combining U-straps
and CFRP sheets is very effective to restore the lost strength in corrosion
damaged beams.