Strengthening RC flat slab-column connections with FRP composites: A review and comparative study

Abstract

In recent years, strengthening through using fibre reinforcing polymer (FRP), has been widely used in buildings, especially slab-column connections. This is due to several reasons; such as the application of additional loads, incorrect analysis and design and others. There are many standards to deal with the FRP application. Each standard has its own specification, which differs from others. No comparison between the standards has been conducted to advise the designer to choose his suitable standards to design slab-column connections. In this paper, an attempt is made to make a comparison between design standards in strengthening flat slab-column connections using FRP to explain the differences between standards in design. This comparison is based on the American Concrete Institute (ACI), Concrete Society technical report 55 and Japanese Society of Civil Engineers (JSCE), which are the only codes dealing with FRP plates or sheets. A numerical study was also conducted in this paper by using a finite element programme called ABAQUS to compare with the previous standards. As all the standards do not have a specific equation for the punching shear deals with FRP; a general equation derived by Farghaly and Ueda (2011) was used to address the slabs strengthened by FRP. From the results of the comparison, it can be seen that the Concrete Society technical report 55 gives the maximum value of the load, while the other codes result in a so closed values.

Keywords

• Flat-slabs
• FRP
• Strengthening
• Punching shear
• Flexural strength