INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
1.1 General
The issue of upgrading the existing civil engineering infrastructure has been one of
great importance for over 20 years or so. Deterioration of bridge decks, beams, girders
and columns, buildings, parking structures and others may be attributed to ageing,
environmentally induced degradation, poor initial design and/or construction, lack of
maintenance, and to accidental events such as earthquakes.
The infrastructures
increasing decay is frequently combined with the need for upgrading so that structures
can meet more stringent design requirements (e.g. increased traffic volumes in bridges
exceeding the initial design loads), and hence the aspect of civil engineering
infrastructure renewal has received considerable attention over the past few years
throughout the world. At the same time, seismic retrofit has become at least equally
important, especially in areas of high seismic risk.
Recent developments related to materials, methods and techniques for structural
strengthening and seismic retrofitting have been enormous. One of todays state-of-theart techniques is the use of fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) materials or simply
composites, which are currently viewed by structural engineers as new and highly
promising materials in the construction industry. Composite materials for strengthening
of civil engineering structures are available today mainly in the form of: (a) thin
unidirectional strips (with thickness in the order of 1 mm) made by pultrusion, (b) flexible
sheets or fabrics, made of fibers in one or at least two different directions, respectively
(and sometimes pre-impregnated with resin). Central to the understanding of composites
bonded to concrete is the fact that stresses in these materials are carried only by the
fibers, in the respective directions.
The reasons why composites are increasingly used as strengthening materials may
be summarized as follows: immunity to corrosion; low weight (about of steel), resulting
in easier application in confined space, elimination of the need for scaffolding and
reduction in labor costs; very high tensile strength (both static and long-term, for certain
types of FRP materials); stiffness which may be tailored to the design requirements; large
deformation capacity, which results in substantial member ductility; and practically
unlimited availability in FRP sizes and FRP geometry and dimensions.
Composites
suffer from certain disadvantages too, which are not to be neglected by engineers:
STRENGTHENING AND SEISMIC RETROFITTING OF STRUCTRURES WITH COMPOSITES
T. C. Triantafillou
INTRODUCTION
contrary to steel, which behaves in an elastoplastic manner, composites in general are
linear elastic to failure (although the latter occurs at large strains) without any yielding or
plastic deformation, leading to reduced (but generally adequate) ductility. Additionally,
the cost of materials on a weight basis is several times higher than that for steel (but
when cost comparisons are made on a strength basis, they become less unfavorable).
Moreover, some FRP materials, e.g. carbon and aramid, have incompatible thermal
expansion coefficients with conventional materials, such as concrete and masonry.
Finally, their exposure to high temperatures (e.g. in case of fire) may cause premature
degradation and collapse (some epoxy resins start softening at about 50-70 oC). Hence
FRP materials should not be thought of as a blind replacement of steel (or other
materials) in structural intervention applications. Instead, the advantages offered by them
should be evaluated against potential drawbacks, and final decisions regarding their use
should be based on consideration of several factors, including not only mechanical
performance aspects, but also constructability and long-term durability.
Composites have found their way as strengthening materials of reinforced concrete
(RC) members (such as beams, slabs, columns etc.) and unreinforced masonry in many
thousands of applications worldwide, where conventional strengthening techniques may
be problematic (e.g. steel plating, steel jacketing, RC jacketing). For instance, one of the
popular techniques for upgrading RC elements has traditionally involved the use of steel
plates epoxy-bonded to the external surfaces (e.g. tension zones) of beams and slabs.
This technique is simple and effective as far as both cost and mechanical performance is
concerned, but suffers from several disadvantages (Meier 1987): corrosion of the steel
plates resulting in bond deterioration; difficulty in manipulating heavy steel plates in tight
construction sites; need for scaffolding; and limitation in available plate lengths (which
are required in case of flexural strengthening of long girders), resulting in the need for
joints. Replacing the steel plates with FRP strips provides satisfactory solutions to the
problems described above.
Another common technique for the strengthening of RC
structures involves the construction of reinforced concrete (either cast in-place or
shotcrete) jackets (shells) around existing elements. Jacketing is clearly quite effective
as far as strength, stiffness and ductility is concerned, but it is labor intensive, it often
causes disruption of occupancy and it provides RC members and/or masonry structures,
in many cases, with undesirable weight and stiffness increase. Jackets may also be
made of steel; but in this case protection from corrosion is a major issue, as is the rather
poor confining characteristics of steel-jacketed concrete (or masonry). The conventional
jackets may be replaced with FRP in the form of sheets or fabrics wrapped around RC
members, thus providing substantial increase in strength (axial, flexural, shear, torsional)
and ductility without much affecting the stiffness.
STRENGTHENING AND SEISMIC RETROFITTING OF STRUCTRURES WITH COMPOSITES
T. C. Triantafillou
INTRODUCTION
1.2 Structure of the book
In this document the aim is to give an overview of the main applications of
composites as externally bonded reinforcement (EBR) of concrete and masonry
structures and to present guidelines for design. Following a general description of
materials and techniques related to the application of composites as external
reinforcement of concrete and masonry in Chapter 2, the document contains several
chapters, with each of them devoted to one particular aspect of strengthening with
externally bonded FRP. Chapter 3 deals with the basis of design with FRP and the
three following chapters deal with the design and structural behavior of concrete
members strengthened in flexure (Chapter4), shear (Chapter 5) as well as through
confinement (Chapter 6).
Naturally, these chapters are followed by detailing and
practical execution rules (Chapter 7). Chapter 8 describes general principles for the
strengthening of unreinforced masonry walls with composites and Chapter 9 presents
the pertinent design equations for in-plane loading, out-of-plane loading as well as
confinement. Finally, Chapter 10 covers issues related to the long-term behavior of
composites in structural interventions.
STRENGTHENING AND SEISMIC RETROFITTING OF STRUCTRURES WITH COMPOSITES
T. C. Triantafillou
INTRODUCTION
STRENGTHENING AND SEISMIC RETROFITTING OF STRUCTRURES WITH COMPOSITES
T. C. Triantafillou