Finite element analysis of shear-deficient RC beams strengthened with CFRP strips/sheets

Performance of shear-deficient reinforced concrete (RC) beams strengthened with carbon fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP) strips/sheets is analyzed through numerical simulations on four-point bending tests. The numerical simulations are carried out using the finite element (FE) program ABAQUS. A micromechanics-based constitutive model (Liang et al. 2006) is implemented into the FE program ABAQUS to model CFRP strips/sheets. The predicted results are compared with experiment data (Khalifa and Nanni 2002) to assess the accuracy of the proposed FE analysis approach. A series of numerical tests are conducted to investigate the influence of stirrup lay-ups on the shear strengthening performance of the CFRP strips/sheets, to illustrate the influence of the damage parameters on the microcrack density<br />evolution in concrete, and to investigate the shear and flexural strengthening performance of CFRP strips/sheets. It has been shown that the proposed FE analysis approach is suitable for the performance<br />prediction of RC beams strengthened with CFRP strips/sheets.