Experimental Study on Flexural Performance of Fire damaged RC Beams Strengthened by Bolted Side plating

Abstract:

Six reinforced concrete (RC) beams were fabricated and exposed to fire in accordance with the international standards ISO834 temperature curve, and five of which were retrofitted employing the bolted sideplating (BSP) technique, then all the specimens were tested under fourpoint bending. The influence of the plate depth and thickness, the bolt spacing, and the arrangement of steelangle stiffeners on the strength, stiffness and ductility of the specimens was investigated. The results indicate that the flexural bearing capacity and the stiffness of all the firedamaged specimens were significantly improved by the BSP technique, but the variation of ductility was highly dependent on the arrangement of strengthening. The strengthening effect increased with the increase of plate thickness and the decrease of bolt spacing, and the local buckling of the bolted steel plates could be restrained effectively by the implementation of the steelangle stiffeners. The degree of partial interaction between the bolted steel plates and the RC beam could be enhanced considerably by limiting the relative slips on the steelconcrete interface and the local buckling of the bolted steel plates.