EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF THE FLEXURAL BEHAVIOUR OF LOW PERFORMANCE RC BEAMS STRENGTHENED WITH TEXTILE REINFORCED MORTAR

During the last years several projects and studies have improved the knowledge about Textile Reinforced Mortar technology. TRM has already been used in strengthening masonry structural elements such as walls or arches and even concrete pillars through confinement, situations where the use of fibro plastic (FRP) composites have presented some drawbacks. One of these disadvantages could be the incompatibility with low performance concrete. These concretes are a consequence of aggressive environments, use of inadequate materials or lack of knowledge in general. The adherence features achieved by organic binders does not suit with poor concrete surfaces and could cause the debonding of FRP laminates or the pulling off concrete substrate when interface forces reach critical values. Besides, organic binders develop problems in moist or chemical aggressive environments showing an adherence shortage. Following this scope, this paper presents an experimental campaign developed to analyse the effect of TRM in flexural retrofitting of 14 beams made of low compressive strength concrete (17 MPa). Carbon, basalt and steel fibres have been used as different core materials for TRM.