An application of high performance jacketing for the shear strengthening of RC beams

The possibility of strengthening RC elements for increasing the bearing capacity under shear actions is an important issue in the retrofitting field. In RC existing structures, made in the ’60s and ’70s, the shear reinforcement is often not sufficient to satisfy the prescription of current codes. Hence, in the retrofit- ting of these structures it is often necessary to increase the shear carrying capacity. The possible use of thin high-performance jackets aimed at improving the shear capacity of existing R/C members is investigated in this paper. Full scale tests have been performed on 2.85 m beams, lacking stirrups. The jackets are made with a high performance fiber reinforced concrete (HPFRC), with or without an additional 2 mm diameter steel- wire mesh. A numerical analysis with a commercial program (DIANA) is also performed in order to better understand the behaviour of the strengthened beams.