Fatigue behavior of RC beams strengthened with prestressed NSM CFRP rods

The fatigue performance of Reinforced Concrete (RC) beams strengthened using NSM CFRP rods was examined in this study. The testing matrix consisted of one un-strengthened beam and four beams strengthened using NSM CFRP rods prestressed to effective strain values of 0, 3260, 6899, and 9177 mu representing 0%, 20.4%, 43.1%, and 57.4% of the CFRP rod ultimate tensile strain, 1.6%. All beams were tested in four-point bending under fatigue conditions representing in-service loading for 3 million cycles at a frequency of 2 Hz. Upper and lower load limits were chosen to induce a stress range of 125 MPa in the tension steel during the first cycle. The fatigue results were compared with experimental test results of identical beams strengthened using prestressed NSM CFRP strips tested under identical fatigue conditions found elsewhere in literature. Test results showed that all strengthened beams experienced deflection increase lower than that of the un-strengthened beam which indicates the efficiency of the strengthening process in reducing the damage accumulation. Also, the percentage deflection increase as well as the stiffness degradation after 3 million cycles are almost the same for all the strengthened beams which indicates that damage accumulation is independent from the prestress level. The groove dimensionality, rather than the CFRP geometry, has a detrimental effect on the bond behavior. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.