ABSTRACT
Shear strengthening of existing structures is a key activity in ensuring adequate safety. Shear deficient Reinforced Concrete (RC) elements exhibit rather brittle failures which can lead to disastrous consequences. Furthermore, even elements which are not prone to shear failure might require installation of shear strengthening solutions, for example after a bending capacity enhancement intervention. Among the different shear strengthening methods available today, the use of Textile Reinforced Concrete (TRC) was given particular attention by both scholars and practitioners due to its compatibility with the substrate material and the overcoming of the intrinsic limitations of Fiber Reinforced Polymer (FRP) solutions. An enhanced version of TRC, named Fibre/Textile Reinforced Concrete (F/TRC) and consisting in the admixture of short dispersed fibres in the cementitious matrix of TRC material, was recently developed and showed high potential as a strengthening material. The use of F/TRC as shear strengthening method was tested in the structural laboratory of Carinthia University of Applied Sciences on real scale RC beams. The effect of these strengthening solutions was evaluated in detail using a Digital Image Correlation (DIC) system. The present article describes the strengthening potential of these solutions and provides insights on the progression of the different observed failure modes, including debonding and interlaminar shearing.
