One of the most important parameters determining structural members' durability and strength is the fire flame's influence and hazard. Some engineers have advocated using advanced analytical models to predict fire spread impact within a compartment and considering finite element models of structural components to estimate the temperatures within a component using heat transfer analysis. This paper presented a numerical simulation for a reinforced concrete beam’s structural response in a case containing Water Absorbing Polymer Spheres (WAPS) subjected to fire flame effect. The commercial finite element package ABAQUS was considered. The relevant geometrical and material parameters of the reinforced concrete beam model at elevated temperature are first suggested as a numerical model. After that, the suggested numerical model was validated against the experimental tests conducted in this study. The validated numerical model was used to conduct a parametric study to investigate the effects of two important parameters on the structural behavior after being exposed to fire flame. The effect of burning temperatures (500, 600, and 700) oC, as well as the influence of fire duration (1 and 2) hours, were included. The experimental program validation requirement comprised four self-compacted reinforced concrete beams each of the same geometric layout (150x200x1500) mm, reinforcing details, and compressive strength (fc'=50 MPa). Four percentages of (WAPS) were considered (0, 1, 2, and 3)%. The specimens were exposed to a fire flame with a steady-state temperature (500°C), a rising rate compatible with ASTM-E119, a one-hour duration, and a sudden cooling procedure. A static (two-point) load was applied to the burned beams. Through the assessed numerical model, the numerical analysis offered by the WAPS ratio effect was carried out for the reinforced concrete beam under the effect of static load. The findings revealed that the WAPS ratio substantially impacted structural behavior. The numerical model's results were in reasonable agreement with the experimental results. Concerning the fire exposure duration (two hours) at 500 oC, the specimens containing a ratio (3%) of WAPS improved the ultimate load and the ultimate deflection by about (46.63 and 72.24)%, respectively. The highest percentage variation of the absorbed energy at failure load was also detected in the ratio (3%) to be (139.43) %. As for the hardening concrete properties (compressive strength, splitting tensile strength, and modulus of elasticity), the residual strength was (61.06, 48.87, and 32.00)%, respectively. Regarding the steady-state burning temperature (500, 600, and 700)oC for a one-hour duration, the specimens with a ratio of (3%) WAPS improved the ultimate load by about (40.70, 62.00, and 40.76)%, respectively, corresponding to zero percentage of WAPS. The residual compressive strength, splitting tensile strength, and modulus of elasticity were (72.40, 56.12, and 43.78)%, (74.36, 56.50, and 44.79)%, and (45.23, 36.57, and 28.94)%, respectively.
This paper presents theoretical parametric study of the curvature ductility capacity for reinforced concrete column sections. The study considers the behavior of concrete and reinforcing steel under different strain rates. A computer program has been written to compute the curvature ductility taking into account the spalling in concrete cover. Strain rate sensitive constitutive models of steel and concrete were used for predicting the moment-curvature relationship of reinforced concrete columns at different rate of straining. The study parameters are the yield strength of main reinforcement, yield strength of transverse reinforcement, compressive strength of concrete, spacing of ties and the axial load. The results indicated that hi
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This paper presents a study (experimentally) for strengthening reinforced concrete (RC) beams with Near-Surface-Mounted (NSM) technique. The use of this technique with CFRP strips or rebars is an efficient technology for increasing the strength for flexure and shear or for repairing damaged reinforced concrete (RC) members. The objective of this research is to study, experimentally, RC beams either repaired or strengthened with NSM CFRP strips and follow their flexural behavior and failure modes. NSM-CFRP strips were used to strengthen three RC beam specimens, one of them was initially strengthened and tested up to failure. Four beam specimens have been initially subjected to preloading to 50% and 80% of ultimate load. Two of the sp
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Test results of nine reinforced concrete one way slab with and without lacing reinforcement are reported. The tests were designed to study the effect of the lacing reinforcement on the flexural response of one way slabs. The test parameters were considered is the lacing steel ratios of (0, 0.0025, 0.0045, and 0.0065), flexural steel ratios of (0.0025, 0.0045, and 0.0065) and span to the effective depth ratios of (11, 13, and 16). Two specimens had no lacing reinforcement and the remaining seven specimens had the lacing reinforcement. Four point bending test were carried out, one of the specimens was tested under the static load applied gradually up to failure and the other specimens were tested under repeated load (5 cyc
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Near surface mounted (NSM) carbon fibers reinforced polymer (CFRP) reinforcement is one of the techniques for reinforcing masonry structures and is considered to provide significant advantages. This paper is composed of two parts. The first part presents the experimental study of brick masonry walls reinforced with NSM CFRP strips under combined shear-compression loads. Masonry walls have been tested under vertical compression, with different bed joint orientations 90° and 45° relative to the loading direction. Different reinforcement orientations were used including vertical, horizontal, and a combination of both sides of the wall. The second part of this paper comprises a numerical analysis of unreinforced brick masonry (URM) wa
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Applying load to a structural member may result in a bottle-shaped compression field especially when the width of the loading is less than the width of bearing concrete members. At the Building and Construction Department – the University of Technology-Iraq, series tests on fibre reinforced concrete specimens were carried out, subjected to compression forces at the top and bottom of the specimens to produce compression field. The effects of steel fibre content, concrete compressive strength, transverse tension reinforcement, the height of test specimen, and the ratio of the width of loading plate to specimen width were studied by testing a total of tenth normal strength concrete blocks with steel fibre and one normal s
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