Load-Displacement Assessment of One-Way Reinforced Concrete (RC) Slabs Externally Strengthened Using CFRP Strips under Blast Loads

Dynamic behaviour of Reinforced Concrete (RC) structures can be assessed using a Single-Degree-of-Freedom (SDOF) approach. Such a method is highly dependent on the resistance curve of the structure which is generally represented by a bilinear elasto-perfectly-plastic approximation. This approximation might lead to erroneous results when it refers to the use of externally bonded Fibre Reinforced composites for flexural capacity upgrade of Reinforced Concrete (RC), mainly when the concrete-to-FRP interface failure is to be included. One-way slabs are experimentally and numerically investigated in this study in a 3-point flexural configuration. Assessment on the load-displacement behaviour of a reference specimen and its retrofitted counterpart is performed. Special attention is given to the behaviour of the structure after the concrete-to-FRP failure. Comparison is made between experimental and numerical results and a good agreement is obtained. A complementary analytical study based on the SDOF method is conducted to understand the influence of several resistance curves on the overall displacement of the same structure when subjected to different pressure-impulse combinations.