Bending Strengthening of Light Concrete T-Shape Beams Using FRP Sheets

In order to investigate the effect of Composite Fiber Reinforced Polymers (GFRP) on bending strengthening of light weight T-shaped concrete beams in this paper, nine specimens were designed, built and tested. These specimens were divided into A, B & C Groups, according to their conditions and bars arrangement and composite layers. In Group A, beams were designed to have a medium bending defects, while Groups B and C designed for maximum and minimum bending defects.In each group one beam was as reference and the others were strengthened with different numbers of FRP layers. According to observations and results, flexural strength increase of in Group A was from 81% to 116% while that was from 33% to 208% in Group B and 67% to 100% in Group C. And also the effect of using stronger epoxy and anti-slipt material to change shear failure (debonding) to flexural debonding and increasing strength was investigated in this paper.