Near-Surface Mounting-Strengthened Reinforced Concrete Beams Incorporating Glass Fiber-Reinforced Polymer Channels

Near-surface mounting (NSM) and external bonding (EB) are wildly used techniques for strengthening reinforced concrete (RC) beams using fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) reinforcement. However, there are a few drawbacks to the use of these two techniques, including premature failure due to concrete cover separation (CCS), which can cause significant challenges for their wide practical applications. Hence, his experimental study investigates the efficiency of using a novel anchoring system for RC beams strengthened at the sides using NSM glass-FRP (NSM-GFRP) bars. The NSM-GFRP bars were anchored with either GFRP channels or GFRP channel strips. The experimental results showed that RC beams strengthened with side NSM-GFRP bars anchored with GFRP channels and GFRP channel strips increased the flexural load of the RC beams by 152% and 106%, respectively, compared to the unstrengthened reference beam. In addition, GFRP channel strips prevented the CCS failure and improved the ductility of the RC beam, using the full strength of NSM-GFRP bars.