Structural Behaviour of Polystyrene Foam Lightweight Concrete Beams Strengthened with FRP Laminates

Lightweight concrete (LWC) is one of the most important building materials nowadays. Many research studies were focused on LWC produced using lightweight aggregates. However, limited work was cited for LWC produced using polystyrene beads. In this study, LWC beams strengthened with carbon fibre reinforced polymer (CFRP) and glass fibre reinforced polymer (GFRP) were experimentally tested to investigate the improvement in their flexural and shear behaviours. LWC in this investigation was achieved by partial replacement of normal aggregate by polystyrene beads and resulted in approximately 30% less weight compared to Normal weight concrete. Fourteen Reinforced Concrete (RC) LWC beams of 100 mm by 300 mm cross section having an overall length of 3250 mm were tested under four-point bending. These beams were designed, detailed, and tested to obtain flexural and shear mode of failure. These beams were divided into two groups based on the intended failure mode. In each group, six beams were strengthened using CFRP and GFRP laminates, while the remaining one beam was used as control. The tested parameters were the type of FRP, the width of the laminates used in shear strengthening, and the number of layers used in flexural strengthening. It was found that strengthening of LWC beams using CFRP and GFRP layers resulted in increasing the loading capacity and decreasing deflection as compared to control. The strengthening with CFRP and GFRP is also suitable in reducing the crack width and crack propagation which is more significant in LWC beams. The experimental results were also compared with the expressions in codes for forecasting the strength of LWC beams and it was that these expressions are compatible with the experimental results.