Behavior of FRP-Strengthened RC Beams with Large Rectangular Web Openings in Flexure Zones: Experimental and Numerical Study

This paper aims to investigate the behavior of fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) strengthened reinforced concrete (RC) beams containing large rectangular web openings in the flexure zone. Studied parameters were type of loading, opening size and strengthening scheme. Seven RC beams categorized into two different groups were tested. In the first group, two unstrengthened beams (one solid without opening and one with large rectangular web opening in the pure flexure zone) were tested under four-point bending. In the second group, five beams were tested under center-point loading. They comprised of one reference solid beam and four beams with large rectangular web opening in the maximum-moment region. Out of the four beams with openings, two specimens were unstrengthened and the other two were strengthened with two different FRP schemes. A numerical study was also conducted and the results of analysis were validated with experiments. The calibrated analysis was then used for some useful parametric studies in which the effect of different parameters was investigated.