An investigation on concrete short corbels behavior strengthened by CFRP laminates

Reinforced concrete short corbels are structural elements which have supporting role in reinforced concrete beams specially in precast structures. Corbels are widely used to transfer the vertical and horizontal loads to primary structural members. In addition, CFRP laminates are beneficial materials for strengthening of reinforced concrete structures. In another words, CFRPs are extremely lightweight, flexible and easy to install. This paper investigates and compare concrete corbels strengthened with various CFRP arrangements. In this regard, nine corbels consolidated with eight different CFRP adjustments in addition to an unstrengthened corbel, analyzed numerically using finite element method and compared to each other. Besides, one of these corbels has a special characteristic with a diagonal hunch at the top side of the corner to column connection. Eventually, the maximum load capacity, stiffness, ductility and the amount of absorbed energy are extracted and evaluated in all models. Finally, the above investigation revealed that corbel used three bonded CFRP laminates all around the column and outside edges (CH1) have an 81% increment in load bearing capacity. Afterward, CH3 model had the second highest amount of load bearing capacity with 72.5% increase among the others. Also, corbel with diagonal hunches showed a better behavior. The aforementioned model had an 8% increase in stiffness to compare with corbels without hunches.

Keywords:

Reinforced concrete corbels , strengthening , CFRP laminates , Bearing capacity , Finite element method