Issue 52

H. EL-Emam et al., Frattura ed Integrità Strutturale, 52 (2020) 197-210; DOI: 10.3221/IGF-ESIS.52.16 197 Focused on Structural Integrity and Safety: Experimental and Numerical Perspectives Effect of concrete cover thickness and main reinforcement ratio on flexural behavior of RC beams strengthened by NSM-GFRP bars Hesham EL-Emam Zagazig University, Egypt elemamh@mail.missouri.edu, http://orcid.org/ 0000-0002-7685-2985 Alaa El-Sisi University of Missouri, USA aep64@mail.missouri.edu, http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8190-6100 Ramy Reda Higher Technological Institute, Egypt ramy_mostafa12000@yahoo.com , http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3298-7925 Mohamed Seleem, Mohamed Bneni Zagazig University, Egypt mhseleem1963@gmail.com, http://orcid.org/ 0000-0002-5777-4651 mohamedbneni@yahoo.com, http://orcid.org/ 0000-0002-4352-5654 A BSTRACT . Experimental and numerical programs were conducted to investigate the effect of concrete cover and area of main steel reinforcement on the flexural behavior of strengthened RC beams by near-surface mounted glass fiber reinforced polymeric (NSM GFRP) bars of different lengths. Nine beams divided into three main groups were tested under four-point bending. The three beams of the first group were strengthened by different lengths of GFRP bars and having a concrete cover of 50 mm, while the three beams in the second group were strengthened in a similar manner as those of the first group but the concrete cover was 30 mm. The main steel reinforcement in the first and second groups was 2Ø10. The three beams of the third group were similar to those of the first and second group but the main steel reinforcement was 2Ø16. The 3-D FE commercial ANSYS program was used for the numerical work. The experimental results showed that decreasing the concrete cover increased the flexural capacity of the strengthened RC beams but this improvement disappeared by decreasing the NSM GFRP bar length. The numerical results showed an agreement with the experimental results. K EYWORDS . Near Surface Mounted; Flexural Strengthening; Concrete Cover Separation; FE models. Citation: EL-Emam, H., El-Sisi, A., Reda, R., Seleem, M., Bneni., M., Effect of concrete cover thickness and main reinforcement ratio on flexural behavior of RC beams strengthened by NSM-GFRP bars, Frattura ed Integrità Strutturale, 52 (2020) 197-212. Received: 05.01.2020 Accepted: 11.02.2020 Published: 01.04.2020 Copyright: © 2020 This is an open access article under the terms of the CC-BY 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.