Shear strengthening of seawater sea-sand concrete beams containing no shear reinforcement using NSM aluminum alloy bars

Due to the fast development of constructions in recent years, there has been a rapid consumption of fresh water and river sand. In the production of concrete, alternatives such as sea water and sea sand are available. The near surface mounted (NSM) technique is one of the most important methods of strengthening. Aluminum alloy (AA) bars are non-rusting and suitable for usage with sea water and sand concrete (SSC). The goal of this study was to enhance the shear behaviour of SSCbeams strengthened with NSM AA bars. Twenty-four RC beams were cast from fresh water river sand concrete (FRC) and SSC before being tested in four-point flexure. All beams are the same size and have the same internal reinforcement. The major factors are the concrete type (FRC or SSC), the concrete degree (C25 or C50 with compressive strength = 25 and 50 MPa, respectively), the presence of AA bars for strengthening, the direction of AA bar reinforcement (vertical or diagonal), and the AA bar ratio (0, 0.5, 1, 1.25 and 2 %). The beams' failure mechanism, load-displacement response, ultimate capacity, and ductility were investigated. Maximum load and ductility of C25-FRC-specimens with vertical and diagonal AA bar ratios (1%) were 100,174 % and 140, 205.5 % greater, respectively, than a matching control specimen. The ultimate load and ductility of all SSCbeams were 16-28 % and 11.3-87 % greater, respectively, for different AA bar methods than that of FRC-beams. The ultimate load and ductility of C25-SSC-beams vertically strengthened with AA bar ratios were 66.7-172.7 % and 89.6-267.9 % higher than the unstrengthened beam, respectively. When compared to unstrengthened beams, the ultimate load and ductility of C50- SSC-beams vertically reinforced with AA bar ratios rose by 50-120 % and 45.4-336.1 %, respectively. National code proposed formulae were utilized to determine the theoretical load of tested beams and compared to matching experimental results. The predicted theoretical loads were found to be close to the experimental values.