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Recently, a new proposed technique named; Externally Bonded Reinforcement on Grooves (EBROG) has been presented as a strengthening method to postpone or eliminate the undesirable debonding failure mode that is accompanying to Externally Bonded Reinforcement (EBR) method. This paper introduces an experimental and analytical study to evaluate the validity and accuracy of the formulas that were introduced by the standard codes and researchers, in estimating the ultimate load of RC continuous beams strengthened with carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) sheets in flexure. The experimental program includes testing of ten RC beams with cross section of (200×130) mm and two equal spans, each span has a 1050 mm length. The comparison between the ultimate load collected from the test results and that predicted using ten different analytical models is conducted. It is found that the ACI 440.2R-17 and most of other analytical models well predicted the ultimate load of RC beams strengthening with one layer of CFRP sheets using EBR, but most of these models significantly underestimate the ultimate load of tested beams that were strengthened using EBROG method. ACI, Shehata el. al., and Teng et al. models give close predicted load to the experimental results in case of EBR beams strengthened with two layers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ductility is one of the most important requirements of RC design besides other requirements such as strength and stiffness. In recent years, concrete beams with a large amount of tensile reinforcement ratio (ρ) have been required in large projects, such as high‐rise buildings and bridges. Using high (ρ) increases the strength and stiffness of the beams and leads to a decrease the ductility. This paper aimed to investigate the effect of using steel fibers reinforced concrete (SFRC) layer in compression zone on the flexural behavior of over‐reinforced concrete beams. Partial replacement of concrete with SFRC layer in compression zone was used to avoid the brittle compression failure of concrete. For this purpose, 12 over‐reinforced concrete beams with a span of 1300 mm and a cross‐section of 120 mm × 180 mm were cast and tested under a three‐point loading. The first beam was used as a reference beam and others as strengthened beams using SFRC layer. The effects of thickness and length of strengthening layer, (ρ), volume fractions of steel fibers, and strengthening methods on flexural performance of tested beams were investigated. The flexural capacity, failure modes, crack patterns, load–deflection relationships, load–strain relationships, ductility index, and toughness were evaluated. The results showed that the suggested technique (SFRC layer in the compression zone) is an effective technique to increase ultimate load, ductility, and toughness by up to 35.72%, 121.01%, and 349.16%, respectively, compared to the reference beam. Furthermore, the failure mode changed from brittle to ductile failure. Also, one of the main advantages of this technique is allows to increase of (ρ) up to 8.55% (4.15ρb) without needing the compressive reinforcement. The results of this study indicate that the using SFRC layer in the compression zone is an appropriate and economical method to provide high flexural capacity and ductility over‐reinforced concrete beams. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The externally bonded reinforcement on grooves (EBROG) method is increasingly recognized as an alternative strengthening method that can overcome the debonding problem. This study aims to experimentally investigate the effectiveness of EBROG as compared to the conventional externally bonded reinforcement (EBR) method in strengthening reinforced concrete (RC) beams. Twelve RC beams have been tested under four point load bending. One of these beams has been designated as a reference beam, seven beams have been strengthened with carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) sheets, and four beams have been strengthened with CFRP laminates using EBROG or EBR methods. The effect of CFRP type, number of layers, as well as the type of strengthening methods on the flexural performance have been also investigated. The load, deflection, stiffness, and failure modes were recorded and discussed intensively. Overall, test results indicated that the flexural strength and stiffness of the strengthened specimens using EBR or EBROG methods increased compared to the control beam, where the increase in the load carrying capacity of beams strengthened using the EBR method ranged between 24.8 and 48.2% and by the EBROG method ranged between 31.7 and 76.7% of the control beam. The most interesting result obtained is that the failure mode of beams has been changed from debonding of CFRP material to rupture of CFRP in some samples strengthened by EBROG, which demonstrates the superior behavior of this strengthening technique as compared to the traditional strengthening using EBR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]