A new research paper, Experimental investigations of repair of pre-damaged steel-concrete composite beams using CFRP laminates and mechanical anchors, co-authored by Ehab Karam (lead), Rami Hawileh, Tamer El Maaddawy and Jamal Abdalla, has been published by the peer-reviewed journal Thin-Walled Structures and is now available online. Ehab Karam is a site engineer at WME.
The paper investigates the flexual performance of pre-damaged composite steel-concrete beams repaired using externally bonded carbon fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP) laminates, with and without mechanical anchors. The damage was created artificially by cutting U-shaped notches of various depths into the undersides of the bottom flanges of the beams at midspan.
The investigation concludes that the CFRP repair scheme was able to restore between 81% and 100% of the original load capacity to the beams, depending on the extent of the damage, and that the inclusion of mechanical anchors improved the gain in strength.
‘Experimental investigations of repair of pre-damaged steel-concrete composite beams using CFRP laminates and mechanical anchors’
by Ehab C. Karam (lead), Rami A. Hawileh, Tamer El Maaddawy, Jamal A. Abdalla
published in Thin-Walled Structures, Vol 112, March 2017, pp107-117
available online through Elsevier’s information portal ScienceDirect