International Research Journal of Engineering and Technology (IRJET) e-ISSN: 2395-0056

Volume: 07 Issue: 02 | Feb 2020 www.irjet.net p-ISSN: 2395-0072

FINITE ELEMENT ANALYSIS OF RETROFITTING OF RC BEAM WITH CFRP

USING ABAQUS
Suresh Kumar Paul1, Pukhraj Sahu2
1M.TECH. (Structural Engineering) Student, Department of Civil Engineering, GEC Jagdalpur, 494001.
Chhattisgarh, India
2Assistant Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, GEC Jagdalpur, 494001, Chhattisgarh, India

---------------------------------------------------------------***----------------------------------------------------------------
Abstract - Concrete structures retrofitted with fibre limited working space and impact on nearby structures.
reinforced plastic (FRP) applications have become When possible, it is often better to repair or upgrade the
structure by retrofitting. Retrofitting of the structures is a
widespread in the last decade due to the economic benefit
cost efficient and more practical method than the
from it. This paper presents a finite element analysis which replacement.
is validated against laboratory tests of eight beams. All For the retrofitting and strengthening of concrete
beams have the same rectangular cross-section geometry structures, the use of bonded steel plates was very
and all beams are loaded under four point bending, but common. However disadvantages of steel such as
different in the length of the carbon fibre reinforced plastic tendency to corrode, heavy weights, deterioration of the
bonds at their steel-concrete interfaces and the
(CFRP) plate. The commercial numerical analysis tool
requirement of massive scaffolding during installation.
ABAQUS has been used and different material models have There has been an increasing interest in the use of high
been evaluated with respect to their ability to describe the strength composites for repair and rehabilitation of
behavior of the beams. Linear elastic isotropic and reinforced concrete components in recent decades. Fibre
orthotropic models have been used for the CFRP and a reinforced Polymers (FRPs) are being used increasingly as
perfect bond model has been use for the concrete–CFRP promising composite materials for the enhancing of
interface. A plastic damage model has been used for the reinforced concrete structures in civil constructions. The
significant increase in use of FRP in construction industry,
concrete. The analysis results show good agreement with
particularly for the retrofit and repair of concrete
the experimental data regarding load–displacement structure has started since 1990.
response, crack pattern. There is no significant difference
between the elastic isotropic and orthotropic models for the 1.1 FRP MATERIAL
CFRP. The results showed that when the length of CFRP in
Fibre reinforced polymer (FRP) composites consist of high
flexural retrofitting increases, the load capacity of the beam strength fibres embedded in a matrix of polymer resin as
increases as well. shown in figure 1.1, the fibres are usually glass, carbon,
aramid, or basalt and polymer is usually an epoxy, vinyl
Key Words: RETROFITTING, FINITE ELEMENT ester, or polyester thermosetting plastic etc.
ANALYSIS, ABAQUS, CFRP.

1. INTRODUCTION

Reinforced concrete structures possess many advantages

such as durability, strength and low maintenance, and
reinforced concrete construction has been very popular all
over the world. Reinforced concrete structures have to
face modification and improvement of their performance
during their service life. Reinforced concrete structures
are subjected to structural deterioration, which might be Figure 1.1: A schematic diagram showing a typical
caused by design and construction defects, environmental unidirectional FRP plate
effects, and extreme loadings such as earthquake, impact
load etc. These fibres are all linear elastic up to failure, with no
In such cases, to improve the load carrying capacity of the significant yielding compared to steel. The primary
RC structures there are two possible solutions, first functions of the matrix in a composite are to transfer
solution is replacement and second solution is retrofitting stress between the fibres, to provide a barrier against the
(strengthening). The replacement of full structures have environment and to protect the surface of the fibres from
disadvantages such as high costs for material and labour, mechanical abrasion.

© 2020, IRJET | Impact Factor value: 7.34 | ISO 9001:2008 Certified Journal | Page 1268
 International Research Journal of Engineering and Technology (IRJET) e-ISSN: 2395-0056
Volume: 07 Issue: 02 | Feb 2020 www.irjet.net p-ISSN: 2395-0072

The main characteristics of CFRP are follows: 3. DEVELOPMENT OF MODELLING FRAMEWORK

a) High strength to weight ratio
b) Excellent corrosion resistance The main objective of the study is to develop a modelling
c) Excellent fatigue resistance framework representing the flexure behavior of beams
d) Good durability, and with retrofitted with FRP. This involves several aspects of
e) Cost effective fabrication. practical and theoretical interest. Important issues such as
material model, element type, various interface, meshing,
In structural engineering, FRP can be used in different convergence and boundary condition.
forms as listed below:
a) FRP strips and sheets for strengthening of 3.1 FEM PROGRAM
structures
b) Reinforcing bars for reinforcing structures ABAQUS/standard has been used for the finite element
c) Tendons for internal prestressing concrete modelling in this project. This FEM package includes a
d) Tendons for external prestressing large variety of material models and elements as well as
e) Pultruded shapes. facilities necessary for this project.

1.2 FRP STRENGTHENED RC BEAMS: At a minimum the analysis model consists of the following
information:-
Among various components of reinforced concrete
structures, beam is one of the most basic structural a) Geometry.
elements as well as an indispensable part for most civil b) Element section properties.
constructions, such as bridges and buildings. During the c) Material data.
service life of RC elements, their stiffness and load d) Loads and boundary conditions.
carrying capacity are decreased since retrofitting or e) Analysis type.
strengthen of those RC elements are required. f) Output requests.

FRP has been used to strengthen RC beams externally, and Use the visualization module of ABAQUS/CAE (also
this is the most common form of structure retrofitting or licensed separately as ABAQUS/Viewer) to read the output
strengthening. FRP plates are usually glued to the bottom database and view the results of analysis. The
or tension side of a reinforced concrete beam to increase ABAQUS/Viewer provides graphical display of ABAQUS
the flexural strength and FRP plates are applied on sides of finite element models and results. It obtains the model and
a reinforced concrete beams to strengthen the reinforced results information from the output database. We can
concrete beam in shear. Many researchers found that the control the output information displayed. For example, we
use of FRP plates increases the stiffness and load carrying can obtain plots such as undeformed shape, deformed
capacity of reinforced concrete beam, consequently shape, loads, x-y data, stress variation and time history
reducing the cracks. After retrofitting or strengthen the animation from ABAQUS/Viewer.
deflection of beam considerably reduced.
In this work, ABAQUS/CAE 6.14 was used to simulate
2. OBJECTIVE OF STUDY several test results from previous works. One of the major
advantages of this software is the flexibility of
The project work has been undertaken with the following implementing, revising, analyzing the model, and
objectives: producing results.
1. To develop model to simulate the behaviour of 3.2 MODELLING OF CFRP BONDED RC BEAMS
concrete and steel.

2. To simulate the behaviour of RC beam and validate it. 3.2.1 Experimental Technique

3. To develop simple finite element models which can The results of the experimental work of retrofitted RC
emulate structural behaviour of CFRP strengthened RC beams which was done by Yasmeen Taleb Obaidat,
beams under static load. Susanne Heyden, Ola Dahlblom, Ghazi Abu-Farsakh and
Yahia Abdel-Jawad has used for comparison and
4. To study the effect of different length of CFRP on load verification of the finite element analysis. Hence, the finite
carrying capacity of beam. element model has been implemented based on the
parameters and conditions in the laboratory tests made by
Yasmeen Taleb Obaidat, Susanne Heyden, Ola Dahlblom,
Ghazi Abu-Farsakh and Yahia Abdel-Jawad.

In this experimental work, eight RC beams are loaded with

four point bending configuration with overall span of 1960

© 2020, IRJET | Impact Factor value: 7.34 | ISO 9001:2008 Certified Journal | Page 1269
 International Research Journal of Engineering and Technology (IRJET) e-ISSN: 2395-0056
Volume: 07 Issue: 02 | Feb 2020 www.irjet.net p-ISSN: 2395-0072

mm, and distance between loads of 520 mm. The distance 3.2.2 Constitutive models and material
between supports is 1560 mm. Beam have rectangular properties
cross section of 150 mm width and 300 mm height. In this
beam, tension reinforcement (2 ϕ12), compression 1. Concrete
reinforcement (2 ϕ 10) are tied together with 8 mm
stirrups c/c 100 mm along the beam. In the last decades, many constitutive models which can
predict the behaviour of concrete, including cracks and
crushing have been developed. Two approaches are
available in ABAQUS to predict the behaviour of concrete:
smeared crack and plastic damage models. The plastic
damage model has been selected for this project, since it
has higher potential for convergence compared to the
smeared crack model. The concrete plastic damage model
assumes that the two main concrete failure mechanisms
are cracking and crushing.

Figure 3.1: Geometry, reinforcement and load of the The plastic damage model requires the values of elastic
tested beams (Dimension in mm) modulus, Poisson’s ratio, the plastic damage parameters
and description of compressive and tensile behaviour. The
In this experimental work, two control beams are loaded five plastic damage parameters are the dilation angle, the
to failure and other beams are loaded until cracks are flow potential eccentricity, the ratio of initial equibiaxial
appeared, then the soffit of beams are retrofitted with compressive yield stress to initial uniaxial compressive
CFRP laminates 50 mm wide, 1.2 mm thick and three yield stress, the ratio of the second stress invariant on the
different lengths 1560 mm ,1040 mm, 520 mm as shown tensile meridian to that on the compressive meridian and
in figure. And retrofitted beams are retested and the viscosity parameter that defines viscoplastic
deflection and load are monitored. regularization.

2. Steel reinforcement

The constitutive model used to simulate the steel

reinforcement was the classical metal elastic-perfectly
plastic model. The steel have been assumed to be an
elastic-perfectly plastic material and identical in tension
and compression. The input for the steel model includes
elastic modulus, Poisson’s ratio and yield stress. The
(a) Retrofitted Beam RB1 elastic modulus, Es, and yield stress fy, were measured in
the experimental study and the values obtained were Es=
209 GPa, and fy= 507 MPa and Poisson’s ratio have been
assumed to be 0.3.

3. CFRP

Two know the actual behavior of CFRP, in this work two

different models use for CFRP. In the first model, the CFRP
material was considered as linear elastic isotropic until
failure. In the second model, the CFRP was modeled as a
(b) Retrofitted Beam RB2 linear elastic orthotropic material. Since the composite is
unidirectional it is obvious that the behaviour is
essentially orthotropic. In a case like this however, where
the composite is primarily stressed in the fibre direction, it
is probable that the modulus in the fibre direction is the
more important parameter. This is why an isotropic model
is considered suitable.

The elastic modulus in the fibre direction of the

(c) Retrofitted Beam RB3 unidirectional CFRP material used in the experimental
(d) study has been specified by the manufacturer as 165 GPa
Figure 3.2: Length of CFRP laminates in test series
RB1, RB2, RB3
© 2020, IRJET | Impact Factor value: 7.34 | ISO 9001:2008 Certified Journal | Page 1270
 International Research Journal of Engineering and Technology (IRJET) e-ISSN: 2395-0056
Volume: 07 Issue: 02 | Feb 2020 www.irjet.net p-ISSN: 2395-0072

and poisson ratio is 0.3. This value for E and ν = 0.3 is use 3.2.4 Numerical Analysis:
for the isotropic model.
In this project, C3D8R element is use for concrete, T3D2
By using rule of mixture, E11 = 164.875 GPa, E22 = 9.66 GPa, element is use for reinforcement and S4R element is use
E33 = 9.66 GPa, ν12 = ν13 = 0.3, G12 = 3.71 GPa and G13 = 3.71 for CFRP. To show the effect of CFRP on the RC beam,
GPa use for orthotropic model. CFRP plate is apply on cracked beam. The pre-crack is
modelled by providing 1 mm gap between CFRP plate and
4. Interface between concrete and CFRP soffit of beam.

The model for the interface between FRP and concrete is 4. VERIFICATION OF FINITE ELEMENT MODEL
of essential importance. In this analysis the interface
between concrete and CFRP is assumed to be perfect bond. To verify the finite element model of the reinforced
concrete retrofitted with CFRP, four beams from an
3.2.3 Boundary Conditions & meshing experimental study (Obaidat 2007) has been simulated.
The result obtain from the FEM analysis are compared to
One quarter of the specimen was modelled by taking experimental result by Obaidat (2007) is shown in figure
advantage of the double symmetry of the beam in three- 4.1. The FEM results is slightly stiffer than the
dimensions and fine mesh used as shown in figure 3.3. The experimental results, because of the in this study assumed
boundary conditions are shown in figure 3.4. A fine mesh perfect bond between steel and concrete.
is providing to obtain accurate result.

(a) Quarter of the beam was modelled

Figure 4.1: Load vs deflection curves of control beams

obtained by experiment and FEM analysis

The above graph show the comparison of FEM analysis

result and experiment result. In experimental result
maxim um load is 117.52 KN and in FEM analysis result
maximum load is 133.81 KN.

As the concrete damage plasticity model does not have a

notation of cracks developing at the material integration
(b) Finite element mesh of quarter of beam point, it was assumed that cracking initiates at the points
where the maximum principal plastic strain is positive,
Figure 3.3: Geometry and element used in FEM analysis figure 4.2 shows a comparison between plastic strain
distributions obtained from the finite element analysis and
crack patterns obtained from the experiments for the
control beam. The cracks obtained in the experiments and
in the simulations are similar, which indicates that the
model can capture the mechanisms of fracture in the
beams.

Figure 3.4: Boundary condition used in numerical

analysis

© 2020, IRJET | Impact Factor value: 7.34 | ISO 9001:2008 Certified Journal | Page 1271
 International Research Journal of Engineering and Technology (IRJET) e-ISSN: 2395-0056
Volume: 07 Issue: 02 | Feb 2020 www.irjet.net p-ISSN: 2395-0072

Flexural Crack

Figure 4.2: Comparison between plastic strain

distribution from FEM analysis and crack pattern from
experiments

5. RESULT & DISCUSSION

(c) RB3
Retrofitting with CFRP to soffit of beam are shown in
figure 5.1 Figure 5.1: Load vs Deflection curve for retrofitting by
CFRP on cracked beam
Load vs Deflection
200
From the load vs deflection graph of RB1, the ultimate load
taken by RB1 beam is 183.36 KN in isotropic model and
150 179.65 KN in orthotropic model. It is clear that the
isotropic model takes more loads about 2.06% as
compared to orthotropic model. This is possibly because
Load

100
of unrealistically high stiffness in the transverse direction
Isotropic and shear of the isotropic CFRP provides a strengthening
50 Orthotropic confinement. The RB1 with isotropic model is compared
with control model is found that the strength was
increased about 37.03%.
0
0 2 4 6 8
From the load vs deflection graph of RB2, the ultimate load
Deflection taken by RB2 beam is 178.63 KN in isotropic model and
176.76 KN in orthotropic model. It is clear that the
(a) RB1 isotropic model takes more loads about 1.05% as
compared to orthotropic model. The RB1 with isotropic
Load vs Deflection model is compared with control model is found that the
200
strength was increased about 33.49%.

150 From the load vs deflection graph of RB3, the ultimate load
taken by RB3 beam is 143.60 KN in isotropic model and
143.55 KN in orthotropic model. It is clear that the
Load

100
isotropic model and orthotropic model have nearly same
Isotropic strength. The RB1 with isotropic model is compared with
50 control model is found that the strength was increased
Orthotropic
about 7.31%.
0
0 2 4 6 8
Deflection

(b) RB2

© 2020, IRJET | Impact Factor value: 7.34 | ISO 9001:2008 Certified Journal | Page 1272
 International Research Journal of Engineering and Technology (IRJET) e-ISSN: 2395-0056
Volume: 07 Issue: 02 | Feb 2020 www.irjet.net p-ISSN: 2395-0072

REFERENCES
Load vs Deflection
200 1. Obaidat Y. “Retrofitting of reinforced concrete beams
using composite laminates”, Jordan University of
150 Science and Technology; 2007.
2. ABAQUS 6.14 Documentation.
Load

100
3. ABAQUS 6.14-1 software.
Isotropic
50 4. Piggott M. “Load bearing fibre composites”. 2nd ed.
Orthotropic
Boston/Dordrecht/ London: Kluwer Academic
0 Publishers; 2002.
0 2 4 6 8
Deflection 5. Balamurali krishnan R., and Jeyasehar C. A. (2009),
“Flexural behaviour of RC beams strengthened with
Figure 5.2: Comparison of load vs deflection of retrofitting Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) fabrics”. The
beam and control beam Open Civil Engineering Journal, 3, 102-109.
6. Hibbitt, Karlsson, and Sorensen, Inc. ABAQUS Theory
6. CONCLUSIONS
manual, User manual and
A finite element model was developed to analyse beams
retrofitted or strengthen with CFRP plate. The finite 7. Example Manual, Version 6.7. Providence, RI; 2000.
element results show good agreement with the 8. Ever J. Barbero “Finite element analysis of composite
experimental results. Elastic orthotropic and isotropic materials”.
behaviours have been used to represent the CFRP 9. Khalifa A, Gold WJ, Nanni A and Aziz A. (1998),
behaviour. The following conclusions can be drawn from “Contribution of externally bonded FRP to shear
this study: capacity of RC flexural members”. Journal of
Composites for Construction, 2, 195–201.
1. The behaviour of the retrofitting of cracked beam is
significantly influenced by the length of CFRP. The load 10. Chen J. F., and Teng J. G. (2003), “Shear capacity of
carrying capacity increases 37.03%, 33.49%, 7.31%. Fiber-Reinforced Polymer-strengthened Reinforced
with the length 1560 mm, 1040 mm, and 520 mm of Concrete Beams: Fiber Reinforced Polymer Rupture”.
the CFRP respectively. Journal of Structural Engineering, Vol. 129.
2. Application of CFRP to uncracked beam provides 11. Kachlakev D, Mccurry DD. “Behavior of full-scale
greater strength as compared to cracked beam. reinforced concrete beams retrofitted for shear and
flexural with FRP laminates”. Compos J 2000.
3. The stiffness of the CFRP-retrofitted beams is
increased compared to that of the control beams. 12. Esfahani M, Kianoush M, Tajari A. “Flexural behaviour
of reinforced concrete beams strengthened by CFRP
7. FUTURE SCOPE FOR STUDY sheets”, 2007.

1. In this project interface between concrete and CFRP 13. Santhakumar R, Chandrasekaran E. “Analysis of
plate is assumed as perfect bonding, for future work retrofitted reinforced concrete shear beams using
cohesive zone modelling is also used. carbon fibre composite”. Electron J Struct Eng 2004.

2. Many environmental factors such as seasonal 14. Ashour AF, El-Refaie SA, Garrity SW. “Flexural
temperature variation, degradation of material strengthening of RC continuous beams using CFRP
properties, creep etc. involved during the life span of a laminates” 2004.
retrofitted structure that needs more attention. The 15. Habibur Rahman Sobuz, Ehsan Ahmed , Noor Md.
durability of CFRP reinforced beams under these Sadiqul Hasan and Md. Alhaz Uddin “Behavior of RC
environmental conditions should be investigated. beams strengthened in flexure with CFRP composites
3. Models based on extended finite element method laminates”, Journal of Engineering Science 01(02),
(XFEM) may be developed to represent the cracks in 2010, 83-90.
the concrete.

© 2020, IRJET | Impact Factor value: 7.34 | ISO 9001:2008 Certified Journal | Page 1273