A SEMI-EMPIRICAL APPROACH FOR THE PREDICTION OF DEFLECTIONS OF FRP STRENGTHENED RC SLABS

摘要

It is well known that once the concrete material develops into its non-linear phase, the prediction of deflections in concrete slabs becomes more difficult as the flexural rigidity EI varies with the increase of loading. This paper proposes a semi-empirical method for the determination of deflections of FRP strengthened RC slabs. The experimental component of this work started by casting four CFRP strengthened concrete slabs, which were then loaded to ultimate failure. The deflection profile of each slab was recorded for every load increment. The current study established a method of quantifying the flexural rigidity from the experimentally obtained moment-curvature and load-strain relationships. These EI values were then substituted into the standard flexural differential equations to derive an expression of slab deflection. The predicted deflections, at any point along the slab for any given load case, were found to closely match the experimental results.