Shear Performance of Fire-Damaged Reinforced Concrete Beams Repaired by a Bolted Side-Plating Technique

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to study the shear performance of fire-damaged reinforced concrete (RC) beams repaired by the bolted side-plating (BSP) technique. A total of six RC beams were fabricated and five were exposed to fire in accordance with standard temperature curves. Then the damaged beams were retrofitted with the BSP technique and four-point bending shear tests were conducted. The development of the temperature and deformation of RC beams under fire, the failure mode, the shear capacity and deformability, and the relative slips between the bolted steel plates and the RC beams were investigated. The displacement and strain fields were also obtained using the digital image correlation (DIC) technique. The testing results indicated that the shear capacity, stiffness, and ductility of the damaged RC beams were recovered after they were repaired by the BSP technique. The strengthening effect increases as the plate depth increases and the bolt spacing decreases. Relative longitudinal and transverse slips between the two structural components of the BSP beams were observed, and the number of anchor bolts exerted crucial influence on the degree of partial interaction between the bolted steel plates and the RC beams.