International Journal of Emerging trends in Engineering and Development

Issue 2, Vol.4 (May 2012) ISSN 2249-6149

Page 98

Finite Element Modeling of Reinforced Concrete Beams
Strengthened with FRP Laminates: A Review
Murali.G
1
, Christyno.E
2
, Shanmuga Priya.P
2

1
Assistant Professor,
2
B.E. Civil, 3rd year students
Department of Civil Engineering,
Vel Tech High Tech Dr. RR Dr.SR Engineering College, Chennai-62,
Tamil Nadu, INDIA.

ABSTRACT
A number of researches have been carried out on finite element modeling of reinforced
concrete beams strengthened with fibre reinforced polymer composites. A small number of
works has been paying attention on strengthening of rectangular beams with different type
and different thicknesses of fibre reinforced polymer. This paper reviews 12 articles on fibre
reinforced polymer strengthened reinforced concrete beams by finite element method.
Finally, this paper attempts to address an important practical issue that is encountered in
strengthening of beams with different thicknesses and different type of fibre reinforced
polymer laminate. This paper also proposes a trouble-free method of applying fibre
reinforced polymer for strengthening the beam with different fibre reinforced polymer types
with different thicknesses.
Keywords: Finite Element Modelling; Reinforced Concrete Beams; FRP Laminates,
Strengthening.
Corresponding Author: Murali.G
1


INTRODUCTION

The performance of composite materials have established enormous growth in aerospace,
marine and automobile industries during the past few decades (1960 onwards) due to their
good engineering properties such as high specific strength and stiffness, lower density, high
fatigue endurance, high damping and low thermal coefficient (in fiber direction), etc.
Latterly, civil engineers and the construction industry have begun to agnise potential of
composites as strengthening material for many problems associated with the deterioration of
infrastructures. Over the last decade, an increase in the application of FRPCs has been seen in
construction industry because of their acceptable engineering properties. Further, these are
being regarded as a replacement to the conventional steel in reinforced concrete structures
due to continuing drop in the cost of FRPC materials. Numerous aspects of FRPC materials
including guidelines for selection of polymer adhesives for concrete have been highlighted by
ACI Committee-503 [1] FRPC are available in the form of rods, grids, sheets and winding
strands. Review of literature up to 1996 can be found in ACI Committee 440 [2]. Another
general review on class of materials including FRPCs application in civil construction was
presented by Sandeep et al. [3].

In the last decade, fiber reinforced polymer FRP composites have been used for
strengthening structural members of reinforced concrete bridges, which are deficient or
obsolete due to changes in their use or consideration of increased loadings. Many researchers
have found that FRP composites applied to the reinforced concrete members provide
efficiency, reliability and cost effectiveness in rehabilitation. A large number of available
software like sap2000, LUSAS, and ANSYS etc incorporate finite elements based analysis.
In this paper an assay has been made with ANSYS (version 10) [4] software to bring into
International Journal of Emerging trends in Engineering and Development
Issue 2, Vol.4 (May 2012) ISSN 2249-6149
Page 99

focus the versatility and powerful analytical capabilities of finite elements technique by
objectively modeling the complete response of test beams. The finite elements model
employs a smeared cracking approach to model the reinforced concrete and three dimensional
layered elements to model the fiber reinforced polymer FRP composites. This model can help
to confirm the theoretical calculations as well as to provide a valuable supplement to the
laboratory investigation of behavior.

APPLICATIONS OF FRP

For structural applications, FRP is chiefly used in two areas. The first area involves the
use of FRP sheets/plates which is to strengthen structurally deficient structural members with
external application of FRP. Retrofitting by means of adhesive bonded FRP has been proved
to be an effective method applicable to many types of concrete structural elements such as
columns, beams, slabs and walls. As an example, a highway reinforced concrete bridge slab
in China was retrofitted using CFRP as shown in Fig. 1 and Strengthening of beam column
joint and column for enhancing load carrying capacity chin swee carpark, singapore as shown
in Fig.2 and Strengthening of chimney stack- Alamo quarry market, texas, USA as shown in
Fig. 3. The other application, use of FRP bars instead of steel reinforcing bars or pre-stressing
strands in concrete structures.


Fig. 1 Flexural Strengthening of a Highway RC Bridge Slab, China.



Fig.2 Strengthening of beam column joint and column for enhancing load carrying capacity
in chin swee carpark, Singapore
International Journal of Emerging trends in Engineering and Development
Issue 2, Vol.4 (May 2012) ISSN 2249-6149
Page 100



Fig.3 Strengthening of chimney stack- Alamo quarry market, texas, USA

PREVIOUS RESEARCH WORKS ON BEAMS

Investigation on the behaviour of FRP retrofitted reinforced concrete structures has in the
last decade become a very important research field. In terms of experimental application
several studies were performed to study the behaviour of retrofitted beams and analyzed the
various parameters influencing their behaviour.
On the field of strengthening structure Reza et al., 2010 experimentally and theoretically
investigated six under-reinforced concrete beams. With the exception of the control beam,
one or four layers of CFRP were applied to the specimens. Each concrete beam was
reinforced with two 16-mm diameter for A series and two 22-mm diameter for B series steel
bars for tension and two 10-mm-diameter steel bars for compression along with 10-mm-
diameter bars at a spacing of 90 mm center-to-center for shear reinforcement. Nonlinear FE
analysis is performed using ANSYS and SOLID65 ANSYS (2003), three-dimensional (3D)
reinforced concrete solid element, is used to represent concrete in the models. They found
that the finite element model results show good agreement with observations and data from
the experimental full-scale beam tests. This numerical study can be used to predict the
behavior of reinforced concrete beam strengthened with FRP more accurately by assigning
appropriate material properties to develop design rules for strengthening RC member using
FRP and the amount of tensile steel reinforcement increases, the additional strength provided
by the carbon FRP external reinforcement decreases.

Amer Ibrahim.M et al., 2009 investigated the six reinforced concrete beams externally
reinforced with fiber reinforced polymer laminates using finite elements method adopted by
ANSYS and the dimension of the beam was 3.2 x 1.5 x 2.5 m. The results from the ansys
were compared with the experimental results. Two beams were used as reference beam and
the one beam Strengthened by one layer of unidirectional transverse carbon/epoxy laminates
CFRP inclined at an angle of 90 to the longitudinal axis with the thickness of 1.6mm.
Another beam strengthened by two layers of unidirectional transverse E-glass/epoxy
laminates GFRP inclined at an angle of 90 to the longitudinal axis with the thickness of
2.1mm. Another beam strengthened by warping with one layer of CFRP inclined at an angle
of 90 to the longitudinal axis with the thickness of 0.18mm and final beam strengthened by
warping with one layer of CFRP inclined at an angle of 90 with an additional layer of CFRP
International Journal of Emerging trends in Engineering and Development
Issue 2, Vol.4 (May 2012) ISSN 2249-6149
Page 101

on both sides of the web inclined at an angle of 0
o
to the longitudinal axis with the thickness
of 0.18mm. Author found that the load-deflection curves from the finite element analysis
agree well with the experimental results in the linear range, but the finite elements results are
slightly stiffer than that from the experimental results. The maximum difference in ultimate
loads for all cases is 7.8% and the results obtained demonstrate that carbon fiber polymer is
efficient more than glass fiber polymer in strengthening the reinforced concrete beams for
shear.

Balamuralikrishnan et al., 2008 investigated the ten rectangular beams which were divided
into two series. In two series of strengthened beams first series having four beams with
bonded CFRP fabric in single layer and which were subjected to static loading, the remaining
two beams were subjected to cyclic load. In the second series having four beams with bonded
CFRP fabric in two layer and which were subjected to static loading, the remaining two
beams were subjected to cyclic load and final two beam were taken as control beam. All the
beams were tested under the four point bending. FEA software ANSYS is adopted for
predicting the load displacement response of the control and strengthened beam due to static
loading condition numerically. The author found that the beam strengthened with CFRP
fabric increase in flexural strength of 18 to 20 % for single layer and 40 to 45 % for two
layers over the control beams. From the experimental results it is clear that minimum two
layer of CFRP fabric Should be bonded to get the desired results more or less the numerical
results has close agreement with the experimental results.

Al Janabi et al., 2009 Simulated four rectangular beams using ANSYS finite element
software. The concrete was modeled using solid 65 three dimensional elements and the steel
reinforcement was modeled using link 8 element. Among four beams one beam was taken as
a control beam and the remaining three beams were strengthened with CFRP plate with
thickness and width of 1.2 mm and 80 mm each. Results of the finite element of the control
and strengthened RC beams were compared with experimental results. The investigator found
that the finite element results of the four tested beams were slightly less than the
experimentally measured ones, the difference between them ranging between 5 to 18% in
case of CFRP strengthened beams and 5% in case of control beams.

Dong-Suk Yang et al., 2009 investigated 13 FRP-strengthened reinforced concrete beams
were tested in flexure and analyzed using the finite element method. The various variables
included bonding or no bonding of the FRP, the anchorage system, the amount of
prestressing, and the span length. The experiments consisted of one control beam, two non-
prestressed FRP-bonded beams, four prestressed FRP-unbonded beams, four prestressed
FRP-bonded beams, and two prestressed FRP-unbonded beams with different span lengths.
All the beams were subjected to three-point and four-point bending tests under deflection
control, with the loading, deflection and failure modes recorded to the point of failure. A
nonlinear finite element analysis of the tested beams was also performed using the DIANA
software; author found the flexural tests performed on reinforced concrete beams
strengthened with prestressed CFRP plates, whether bonded or not, the ultimate load of the
beams strengthened with CFRP was reasonably constant. The observed failure mode of the
prestressed CFRP plated-beams was not debonding, but FRP rupture. A finite element
analysis of the reinforced concrete beams strengthened with CFRP plates was performed
using the DIANA program, which considered nonlinear concrete material behaviour, the steel
reinforcement, and an interfacial bond-slip model between the concrete and CFRP plates. The
analytical results showed good agreement with those obtained experimentally for the
debonding load, yield load, and ultimate load.
International Journal of Emerging trends in Engineering and Development
Issue 2, Vol.4 (May 2012) ISSN 2249-6149
Page 102


Sudheer Reddy et al., 2011 Tested eight reinforced high strength concrete (HSC) beams
under two point loading, varying the shear span to effective depth ratio (a/d). The test
specimens are divided into four series. Each series consisted of two high strength concrete
beams without shear reinforcement with a/d ratio 1, 2, 3 and 4. For all the series, the
parameters viz., concrete proportions and percentage of longitudinal steel are kept constant.
The concrete has been modeled using SOLID65 defined as eight node brick element
capable of simulating the cracking and crushing of brittle materials. The compressive strength
and tensile strength are established based on test data of the specimens cast and tested along
with the rectangular beams. The data was used for defining concrete (CONCR) properties in
ANSYS. Before cracking or crushing, concrete is assumed to be an isotropic elastic
material. Author found that the crack patterns and the order of cracks predicted by ANSYS
model are in confirming with experimental observations. During the test process, at ultimate
load the inclined crack in shear span widened and concrete under the load point crushed. The
ANSYS model predicted the crushing of concrete at ultimate by indicating large distortion of
element nodes. The crack patterns indicate purely shear failure at a/d =1 and 2 and shear
flexure failure at a/d =3 and 4. The ANSYS model closely predicted the diagonal tension
failure and shear compression failure of high strength concrete beams with out shear
reinforcement as observed in experiment.

Table-1 Geometry of beams and details of element type and software
Author L
(mm
)
b
(mm
)
d
(mm
)
fck
N/mm
2

% of
steel
Softwar
e used
Type of
element for
concrete
Type of
element
for FRP
[5] 3000 150 250 77 1.2% to
2.4%.
ANSYS SOLID65 SOLID46
[6] 3620
2134
150
230
250
380
27.54
31
0.7
1.12
ANSYS SOLID65 SOLID46
[7] 1500 120 150 32.1
44.6
- ANSYS SOLID65 SOLID46
[8] 3200 150 250 27.54 0.72 ANSYS SOLID65 SOLID46
[9] 1219 127 203 36.5 1.5 ANSYS SOLID65 SOLID46
[11] 2400
4500
6000
200 300 16.4 0.4 DIANA - -
[12] 700
1000
1300
1600
100 150 70 4.00 ANSYS SOLID65 SOLID46


International Journal of Emerging trends in Engineering and Development
Issue 2, Vol.4 (May 2012) ISSN 2249-6149
Page 103

Table-2. Experimental results and numerical simulation of load-carrying capacity of
reference RC beams
Auth
or
Beam ID Materi
al
No
of
laye
r
Thickne
ss
(mm)
Experim
ental
Ultimate
Load
(kN)
FEM
Ultimate
Load
(kN)
%
differ
ence
Failure mode
[5] AH0
AH1
AH2
BH0
BH1
BH2
-
CFRP
CFRP
-
CFRP
CFRP
0
1
2
0
1
2
-
0.045
0.045
-
0.045
0.045
81.2
89.9
117.3
149.5
150
167
75.4
90.2
115.4
140.2
155.6
172.3
7.18
0.30
1.62
6.23
3.73
3.17
Crushing of the
concrete
Rupture of FRP
sheets
Rupture of FRP
sheets
Crushing of the
concrete
Rupture of FRP
sheets
Rupture of FRP
sheets
[6] B1
B1C-90
B1G-90
B1G-90
B2C-90
B2C-90-0
-
CFRP
GFRP
-
CFRP
CFRP
0
1
2
0
1
1
-
1.6
2.1
-
0.18
0.18
69
125
116
416
435
445
66
119
107
405
414
420
4.3
4.8
7.8
2.6
4.8
5.6
Shear failure
Flexure
Flexure
Shear failure
Flexure
Flexure
[7] CB1
A950
A1100
A1500
-
CFRP
CFRP
CFRP
0
1
1
1
-
1.2
1.2
1.2
42.3
56.2
57.3
118
40
51
54
96
5.43
9.25
5.76
18.64
Flexure
Peeling of CFRP
Peeling of CFRP
Flexure
[8] CB1
RB1
RB3
-
CFRP
CFRP
0
1
2
-
0.3
0.3
41.25
49.50
60.00
41.0
49.0
58.0
0.6
1.01
3.33
Flexure
Flexure
Flexure
[9] C48
IIIFU
IE
-
CFRP
CFRP
0
1
1
-
1.499
1.092
110
192
148
118.80
207.36
136.16
8.00
8.00
8.00
Flexure + Shear
Flexure + Shear
Flexure + Shear



[11]
Control
NFCB1
NFCBW2
PFCU1-0R
PFCU1-2R
PFCU1-4R
PFCU1-6R
PFCB1-0R
PFCB1-2R
PFCB1-4R
PFCB1-6R
-
CFRP
-
CFRP
CFRP
CFRP
CFRP
CFRP
CFRP
CFRP
CFRP
-
1
2
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
-
0.13
0.13
0.13
0.13
0.13
0.13
0.13
0.13
0.13
0.13
40.4
56.3
98.4
43.0
56.4
75.90
83.6
55.4
71.6
85.2
100.5
41.00
59.0
99.5
47.4
61.0
83.9
92.6
56.4
75.5
91.6
105.9
1.48
4.79
1.11
10.2
8.15
10.54
10.76
1.80
5.44
7.51
5.37
Flexural
Debonding
Delamination
FRP Rupture
FRP Rupture
FRP Rupture
FRP Rupture
Debonding + Rupture
Debonding + Rupture
Debonding + Rupture
Debonding + Rupture
[12] RO1
RO2
RO3
RO4
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
260
150
150
120
280
149
149
118
7.69
0.66
0.66
1.66
Shear
Shear
Shear
Shear
International Journal of Emerging trends in Engineering and Development
Issue 2, Vol.4 (May 2012) ISSN 2249-6149
Page 104

COMMENTS ON THE ACTUAL STATE OF ART
From the above review of literature (Table-1& Table-2) illustrates that although substantial
research has been conducted on FRP strengthening of reinforced concrete beams but still the
behavior of FRP strengthened beams under different thickness of GFRP and CFRP schemes
of strengthening is not well established. In all the above cases, it is seen that the thickness of
GFRP and CFRP laminates were chosen arbitrarily. There is no design guideline for
optimizing and choosing the thickness of FRP sheet/laminate for strengthening RC beams.
Most of the researches were conducted on RC rectangular sections which are strengthened in
flexure with different type of FRP with constant thickness of GFRP and which are
strengthened with 1, 2 and 3 layer of FRP.


PROPOSED METHOD OF STRENGTHENING
To overcome the problems stated above, the future new technique for strengthening the beam
with the different type of GFRP (chopped strand mat, woven roving and uni-directional) and
CFRP with the different thickness to understand the behaviour of strengthened beam for
varying thickness of FRP. The study parameters included first crack load, yield load, ultimate
load, first crack deflection, yield deflection, ultimate deflection, crack width, deflection
ductility and energy ductility has to be investigated with different thickness of FRP.
At the end, the proposed study is to improve the understanding of reinforced concrete beams
retrofitted with different thickness of FRP and this proposal brings new challenges for
professionals and who are working in the field of structural repair and strengthening of
reinforced concrete structures and due to the latest technologies in binding the delamination
concept can be totally eradicated.

CONCLUSION
A thorough investigation is carried out for retrofitted reinforced concrete beams using the
finite elements adopted by ANSYS. It can be used to predict failure modes for organically
bonded FRP reinforced concrete beams. This numerical modeling helps to track the crack
formation and propagation especially in case of FRP strengthened beams in which the crack
cannot be seen by the experimental study due to wrapping of CFRP composites enables to
predict the behavior of retrofitted reinforced concrete beams more precisely by assigning
appropriate material properties. From the literature, it is obvious that epoxy resin favoured in
strengthening and eliminates the debonding failure. Most of the researchers adopted the grade
of concrete such as M30 and M35. The research can be extended for higher strength. Future
research is needed for a complete awareness for strengthening reinforced concrete beams
with different thickness of FRP, with the aim to contribute in the concrete structures repair
tasks efficiently as well as to decrease the dimensional stability of the structure.

REFERENCE
[1] ACI Committee-503. Guide for the selection of polymer adhesive with concrete. ACI
Mater J 1992; 89(1):90105.

[2] ACI Committee 440. State-of-the-Art report on fiber reinforced plastic (FRP)
reinforcement for concrete structures. Farmington Hill, MI: American Concrete Institute;
1996.

[3] Sandeep S. Pendhari, Tarun Kant *, Yogesh M. Desai, 2007 Application of polymer
International Journal of Emerging trends in Engineering and Development
Issue 2, Vol.4 (May 2012) ISSN 2249-6149
Page 105

composites in civil construction: A general review Composite Structures 84 (2008) 114124

[4] ANSYS Manual, Version (10.0).

[5] Reza Mahjoub and Seyed Hamid Hashemi 2010 Finite Element Analysis of RC Beams
Strengthened with FRP Sheets under Bending Australian Journal of Basic and Applied
Sciences, 4(5): 773-778,

[6] Amer M. Ibrahim, Mohammed and Sh. Mahmood. 2009. Finite Element Modeling of
Reinforced Concrete Beams Strengthened with FRP Laminates. European Journal of
Scientific Research Vol.30: 526-541.

[7] A.I.M. Al-Janabi, S.A. Ahmed & A.R. Safi Behavior of RC beams strengthened with
CFRP plates using the finite element modeling Fourth International Conference on FRP
Composites in Civil Engineering (CICE2008) 22-24July 2008, Zurich, Switzerland.

[8] R. Balamuralikrishnan, and C. Antony Jeyasehar 2009 Flexural Behavior of RC Beams
Strengthened with Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) Fabrics The Open Civil
Engineering Journal, 3, 102-109.

[9] R.Santhakumar and E.Chandrasekaran 2004 Analysis of Retrofitted Reinforced
Concrete Shear Beams using Carbon Fiber Composites Electronic Journal of Structural
Engineering, 4, 66-74

[10] Norris Tom, Saadatmanesh Hamid and Ehsani Mohammad R. 1997, Shear and Flexural
Strengthening of R/C Beams with Carbon Fiber Sheets, Journal of Structural Engineering,
vol.123, no.7, July.

[11] Dong-Suk Yang , Sun-Kyu Park , Kenneth W. Neale , 2009 Flexural behaviour of
reinforced concrete beams strengthened with prestressed carbon composites Composite
Structures 88 (2009) 497508

[12] Sudheer Reddy L., Ramana Rao N. V.

and Gunneswara Rao T. D 2011 Evaluation of
Shear Resistance Of High Strength Concrete Beams Without Web Reinforcement Using
Ansys ARPN Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Vol. 6, No. 2.