Behavior Investigation of Reinforced Concrete Members with Flexural Strengthening Using Strain-Hardening Cementitious Composite

Strain-hardening cementitious composite (SHCC) has been increasingly used in strengthening reinforced concrete (RC) structures, whereas the behavior of an RC member with flexural strengthening using SHCC has not been clearly understood because it is affected by varied factors. This paper aims to clarify the aforementioned behavior by experimental and numerical investigations in which the numerical result is accurately verified using a newly developed numerical approach considering the influence of the tensile strain capacity of SHCC, presence of localized concrete cracks, and varying SHCC layer thickness. In the numerical approach, a zero-span tensile model with fictitious material is adopted to obtain the average tensile behavior of the SHCC layer for strengthening an RC member with cracks.