Construction and Building Materials 57 (2014) 126137

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Construction and Building Materials

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/conbuildmat

Flexural strengthening of reinforced concrete slabcolumn connection

using CFRP sheets
Hazem A. El-Enein a, Hossein Azimi b,, Khaled Sennah b, Faouzi Ghrib a
a
b

Civil and Environmental Engineering Department, University of Windsor, Windsor, ON, Canada
Civil Engineering Department, Ryerson University, 350 Victoria, Toronto, ON, Canada

h i g h l i g h t s
 6 specimens were tested, 3 control specimens and 3 CFRP strengthened counterparts.
 The proposed strengthening scheme was proven to be effective and have sufcient anchorage.
 Effect of column eccentricity on concentric, eccentric and edge columns was studied.
 Alteration in ductility due to the application of CFRP sheets and column eccentricity was studied.
 Code-based predicted capacities were not conservative for CFRP-reinforced eccentric columns.

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 16 April 2013
Received in revised form 19 January 2014
Accepted 24 January 2014
Available online 24 February 2014
Keywords:
CFRP sheets
Strengthening
Reinforced concrete
Slabcolumn connection
Flat-plate system
Experiments
Ultimate load
Ductility

a b s t r a c t
The objective of this paper is to investigate experimentally the effectiveness of application of carbon ber
reinforced polymer (CFRP) sheets as a strengthening technique of a reinforced concrete (RC) slabcolumn
connection in one-way at-plate system to enhance its exural strength. The experimental study was
particularly conducted to examine whether there is enough anchorage with the use of CFRP wrapping
to the discontinuous longitudinal CFRP sheets at column stub. Series of tests were conducted on six at
slabcolumn connection specimens organized in two groups of three specimens each. The rst group
included three control specimens with central, eccentric, and edge columns, respectively. The second
group was geometrically identical to the rst group, though with CFRP sheets installed on the tension
side of the slab to increase exural capacity at the negative moment region. The specimens with eccentric
and edge columns are those having geometrical eccentricity and whose results are compared with those
obtained for specimens with central column to study the effect of column eccentricity. The experimental
work included fabrication of specimens and testing them under increasing monotonic gravity loads up to
failure. Experimental results demonstrated that the exural ultimate load carrying capacity increased by
33%, 37% and 67% for the tested specimens with central, eccentric, and edge column, respectively, when
strengthened using CFRP sheets. The cross-sectional analysis was also undertaken to compare the experimental results with those obtained from Canadian Standards for FRP design for buildings.
2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
The connection between reinforced concrete (RC) at-slab and
column is a critical as it is exposed to large exural stresses. There
may be a need to improve the exural load carrying capacity of
these at slab structures especially when they are exposed to sever
environmental conditions that cause corrosion of the steel reinforcement (e.g. parking garages). There are few traditional techniques to restore the strength and stiffness of existing concrete
Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 4163994974.
E-mail addresses: hossein.azimi@ryerson.ca, h.azimi@gmail.com (H. Azimi).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2014.01.077
0950-0618/ 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

at-slabs, among them: steel plate bonding, section enlargement,

and external post-tensioning. However, most of these techniques
are either capital-demanding or are still hampered by steel corrosion or deterioration of the bond at steelconcrete interface caused
by the corrosion of steel [13].
Application of bre reinforced polymer (FRP) composites is an
alternative to traditional strengthening methods offering several
advantages over traditional strengthening techniques. These
advantages include high tensile strength-to-weight ratio, relatively
easy installation, and noncorrosive nature. Among the FRP types,
carbon ber reinforced polymers (CFRP) sheets are commonly used
in external strengthening of structural members that are known to

H.A. El-Enein et al. / Construction and Building Materials 57 (2014) 126137

be practically immune to chemical attacks and have high strength

and relatively high modulus. Studies have shown that FRPs increase the strength of exural members signicantly. The behaviour of the beamcolumn connection strengthened by CFRP was
signicantly investigated by Antonopoulos and Triantallou [4]
and Bousselham [5]. However, few authors dealt with strengthening of slabcolumn connection in at-plate system RC structures
using FRP sheets.
Michaluk et al. [6] studied exural and shear behaviour of oneway slabs reinforced with FRP reinforcing bars. Successful CFRP
sheet application on a troubled post-tensioned concrete slab of a
parking garage in Atlanta, USA, was investigated by Vatovec et al.
[7], where proof load testing demonstrated successful performance
of the CFRP repair of spans with delaminated Gunite beams.
Robertson and Johnson [8] presented the results of repaired RC
slabcolumn connections with epoxy injection subjected to cyclic
lateral loads and gravity loads. Mosallam and Mosalam [9] studied
the application of CFRP laminates in 2640  2640  76.2 mm RC
two-way slabs, showing signicant upgrade in the structural
capacity in the order of 500% in unreinforced and 200% in reinforced specimens.
A strengthening technique using CFRP sheets was investigated
by Binici and Bayrak [10] to increase punching shear capacity in
RC at-plates depicting about 50% augmentation in the capacity.
Punching shear behaviour of CFRP-strengthened RC two-way slabs
was also studied by El-Salakawy et al. [11] at the slabcolumn connection of an edge column having un-balanced moment. The effect
of various CFRP strip congurations on the punching shear
capacity of two-way slabs was investigated by Sharaf et al. [12].
The effect of externally bonded FRP composites in the stiffness
enhancement of one-way slabs and the corresponding deection
control capabilities were studied by Ospina [13].
The structural behaviour of a cracked RC one-way slab rehabilitated with CFRP sheets was studied by Thanoon et al. [14], demon-

(a)

127

strating the enhancement in ultimate capacity while reducing the

ductility. Polies et al. [15] and Halabi et al. [16] investigated the
efciency of the application of CFRP sheets as rehabilitation and
strengthening technique of a at-plate slabcolumn connection
subjected to monotonic gravity loading and unbalanced moment.
Results showed that the rehabilitation technique was able to restore and enhance the ultimate load capacity and stiffness of all
cracked specimens. However, the ductility index reduced after
rehabilitation and the mode of failure changed [15].
Despite the considerable amount of research on the exural
strengthening of beams and slabs with CFRP strips, the effect of column eccentricity on the CFRP exural strengthening requires more
experimental research. This paper presents the experimental investigation of three types of slabcolumn connections of one-way RC
at slabs strengthened by CFRP strips. The slabcolumn connection
is also referred to as the negative moment region of the slab where
the top of the slab is in tension and the bottom is under compression. One type of these one-way at slabs [17] is shown in
Fig. 1(a) and (b). This type of at slab considers the at slab acting
in one direction normal to the main shallow beams connecting columns in the other direction. At columns, the negative moment on
the shallow beams is much more than that in the slab short direction, thus one-way action is dominant. Depending on the location
of columns, three slabcolumn types are shown in Fig. 1(c).
Type 1 represents the internal columns, which are usually centered
in the shallow beam. The other two types illustrate side columns
due to a column with eccentricity (Type 2) or an edge column
(Type 3). Types 1 and 3 are common types that are always parts
of the slab system shown in Fig. 1(a). Type 2 may be used instead
of Type 3 in some applications where the slab is extended few millimeters outside the column edge to accommodate continuous
exterior wall or cladding. For instance, if the perimeter masonry
or stud wall insulation needs to be continuous along building
perimeter, the column should be cast close to the slab edge with

(b)

(c)

Fig. 1. (a) Example of the studied system in a parking garage; (b) example of the studied system in a corner column [17]; (c) various types of the system depending on the
column location.

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H.A. El-Enein et al. / Construction and Building Materials 57 (2014) 126137

an eccentricity equal to or greater than the wall thickness. The

inuence of CFRP exural strengthening for such cases is studied
in this paper.
2. Proposed exural strengthening scheme
The proposed strengthening scheme is shown in Fig. 2 for an
interior column of a at slab system or a system with shallow
beams. Fig. 2 shows that the CFRP sheets are attached to the top
surface of the concrete at slabcolumn location (i.e. negative moment region) where the top surface of concrete is in tension and
bottom surface is under compression. Since this system will be
tested in one-way slab or beam system, Fig. 2 shows the strengthening scheme in one direction only. However, this proposed
scheme can be applied to the perpendicular direction too in a
two-way slab system.
The CFRP strengthening scheme consists of four longitudinal
CFRP sheets, namely: A, B, C and D as shown in Fig. 2. Sheets D
and C are continuous over the negative moment region and along
the sides of the column, while sheets A and B are discontinuous
at column location. In order to provide sufcient anchorage for
sheets A and B at the column location, they are bent upward and
glued to the column width over a 200-mm length. Then, the bent
portions of these sheets are anchored using CFRP wrapping sheet,
noted as sheet E in Fig. 2, with a width of 200 mm. The capacity
of the proposed anchorage details for the discontinuous sheets at
the column location is as yet unavailable in the literature and
can only be evaluated experimentally. The lengths of sheets
A to D depend on the length of negative moment region and the
potential for premature peeling off the CFRP sheets from concrete
surface at their ends. More details of the proposed exural
strengthening scheme together with associated dimensions will
be mentioned later in this paper.
3. Experimental program
3.1. Test specimens
In this paper, the three types of slabcolumn connections were studied corresponding to three column locations of centric, eccentric, and edge as shown in
Fig. 1(c). The slab dimensions were kept 2.0  1.0 m with the aspect ratio of 2 which
is usually taken as the limit for one-way slab behaviour. Strengthening schemes

(a) Proposed strengthening scheme

with CFRP strips were applied on the tension side (top of the slab at the negative
moment region), then the specimens were inverted and tested under gravity load
to apply bending moments at the slabcolumn location, where the tension side
was at the bottom of the specimens. This was done to simplify the testing procedure
by applying a downward jacking load on top of the column stub while the corners of
the slab rest over point supports.
The experimental program included testing up-to-failure six specimens in two
groups as shown in Table 1. The rst group consisted of three specimens with concrete slabcolumn connection system without CFRP strengthening (control specimens), while the second group was identical to the rst group but with
strengthening using externally-bonded CFRP sheets. Each tested specimen was
composed of 2000  1000  150 mm slab, with 200  200 mm column stub
extending 750 mm above the slab and 400 mm below the slab. The dimension of
the slabs and the column stub were kept unchanged for all specimens, however
the location of the column stub was variable along the short direction of the specimens as shown in Fig. 3. These column locations were identied herein as central
column for specimen S-1, eccentric column for specimen S-2 and edge column for
specimen S-3. Specimens S-4, S-5, and S-6 were geometrically identical to specimens S-1, S-2 and S-3, respectively, except that the former specimens were
strengthened in the tension side of the slab and around the column stub using CFRP
sheets. Fig. 3(a)(c) shows the dimensions of test specimens in plan-view. Crosssectional view showing the slab thickness and steel reinforcement is depicted in
Fig. 3(d).
Steel reinforcement in the slab consisted of two meshes of M10 (i.e. 11.3 mm
diameter and 100 mm2 cross-sectional area) steel bars near the top and bottom surfaces of the slabs at equal spacing of 100 mm and clear concrete cover of 25 mm.
Four 10 M steel bars, one at each corner of the cross-section, were used to reinforce
the column stub. Fig. 3(d) shows details of steel reinforcement with a view of the
steel reinforcement and wooden formwork for specimen S-1 shown in Fig. 3(e).
After concrete hardening, specimens S-4, S-5 and S-6 were strengthened using
CFRP sheets. The CFRP sheets were applied as recommended by the manufacturer
and were installed in the tension side of the slab per the sequence shown in
Fig. 4(a)(c). It can be observed that CFRP strips that intersect with the column were
bent 90 and glued to the column side over a length of 150 mm. Then, those bent
strips were wrapped with a 200 mm width CFRP strip for better anchorage. It
should be noted that the end of the CFRP sheets in the slab short direction in specimens S-5 and S-6 were bent vertically and glued to the vertical side of the slab, as
shown in Fig. 4(b) and (c) to provide better anchorage at those locations. Fig. 4(d)
views an example of strengthened specimen S-5.
3.2. Material properties
High-early strength concrete, with a specied compressive strength of 35 MPa
after seven days was used. The concrete was ordered in two batches. The rst batch
was used in casting specimens S-1, S-2 and S-4, while the second batch was used to
cast specimens S-3, S-5 and S-6. The results of testing concrete cylinders in the form
of compressive and splitting strengths at the time of testing are shown in Table 1.
Steel reinforcing bars, which were used for reinforcing the six slabs and all their column stubs, were 10 M bars with specied yield strength of 400 MPa and modulus of
elasticity of 200 GPa.

(b) Detailing of strengthening scheme

Fig. 2. General view of the proposed strengthening scheme.

Table 1
Specimen denition and concrete characteristics.
Group

Specimen no.

Column location

Strengthening using CFRP

Concrete compressive strength (MPa)

Concrete splitting strength (MPa)

S-l
S-2
S-3

Central
Eccentric
Edge

No
No
No

40.1
40.1
39.2

3.9
3.9
3.7

II

S-4
S-5
S-6

Central
Eccentric
Edge

Yes
Yes
Yes

40.1
39.2
39.2

3.9
3.7
3.7

H.A. El-Enein et al. / Construction and Building Materials 57 (2014) 126137

(a)

(b)

(c)

129

- All dimensions are in mm

(d)
(e)

Fig. 3. (a), (b), and (c) Geometry of specimens in plan view; (d) steel reinforcement used in all specimens; (e) view of the steel mesh and formwork for specimen S-1.

(a)

(b)

- All dimensions are in mm

(c)

(d)
Fig. 4. Details of CFRP strengthening (a) specimen S-4, (b) S-5, (c) and S-6; (d) view of specimen S-5 after CFRP application.

The CFRP reinforcement material was Tyfo SCH-41S Composite Fibre System
[18] and was applied longitudinally and transversely on the tension side of the slab.
This system consisted of Tyfo S Epoxy and Tyfo SVH-41S reinforcing fabrics. The

Tyfo SCH-41S is a unidirectional carbon fabric with aramid cross bres. It has been
stitched, with the carbon material oriented in 0 direction, and aramid bres at 90.
The CFRP system properties are summarized in Table 2.

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H.A. El-Enein et al. / Construction and Building Materials 57 (2014) 126137

3.3. Steel and CFRP reinforcement ratios

As stated before, 10 M steel bars were used in all directions as tension and compression steel in all specimens. The steel reinforcement used corresponds to 1.02%
steel reinforcement ratio (qs) which falls in the range of 0.51.2% commonly used
for at slabs [19]. This reinforcement ratio was chosen so that the exural failure
of test specimens starts with yielding of tension steel followed by concrete crushing
at the compression side of the slab. In order to understand the expected behaviour
of the test specimens, Fig. 5 was drawn. Assuming complete one-way slab action of
test specimens, three distinct areas are recognized in Fig. 5 depending on the steel
and CFRP reinforcement ratios dened as qs = As/bd and qfrp = Afrp/bd, respectively
[20], where b = 1000 mm is the width of the section, d = 108.05 mm is the depth
of tension steel reinforcement, As is the tension steel area and Afrp is the area of CFRP
sheets. Area (1) in Fig. 5 is due to compression failure in concrete before steel yielding or rupture in CFRP, also referred as over-reinforced section. Area (2) corresponds
to yielding in steel with no rupture in CFRP which is the preferred behaviour.
Finally, rupture in CFRP occurs in Area (3) with yielding in steel bars, leading to a
sudden drop in the slab exural capacity. These three areas are divided by two
straight lines as depicted in Fig. 5, whose function is given by:
2

/s F y e0s Es qs /frp efrp Efrp qfrp /c a1 b1 fc0 b dc

where /s, /frp, and /c are resistance factors for steel bars, CFRP sheets, and concrete
with values equal to 0.85, 0.65, and 0.65, respectively, as specied by CSA S806-12
[21]. Other parameters in Fig. 5 are: steel yield strength Fy = 400 MPa; steel tensile
modulus Es = 200 GPa; CFRP tensile modulus Efrp = 65.1 GPa; concrete compressive
strength fc0 as reported in Table 1; equivalent concrete stress block factors
a1 = 0.850.0015fc0 and b1 = 0.970.0025 fc0 ; and c is the depth of the neutral axis.
In Eq. (1), it is assumed that the areas of tension and compression steel reinforcement are equal (As = A0s ) which is the case of the current study.
For the line of the balanced section (i.e. es = ey when concrete crushes, the line
between Areas (1) and (2) in Fig. 5), the followings should be substituted in Eq. (1):

0
ecu
d c
hc
d; e0s
ecu 6 ey ; efrp
ecu
ecu ey
c
c

where concrete ultimate strain ecu = 0.0035; steel yield strain ey = 0.002; depth of
compression reinforcement d0 = 41.95 mm, and h is the slab thickness. Similarly,
for the line representing balance condition of the CFRP rupture (i.e. line between
Areas (2) and (3) in Fig. 4), the followings should be substituted in Eq. (1):

Description: Primary carbon bre, 0; aramid bre 90

Ultimate tensile strain
Ultimate tensile strength
Tensile modulus
Laminate thickness

1.21%
786 MPa
65.1 GPa
1 mm

CFRP reinforcement ratio (Afrp/bd), %

f 'c=39.2 MPa

f 'c=40.1 MPa

Area (1): Compression failure: s<y

S-1, S-2 and S-3
S-4
S-5
S-6
Balanced section:
s=y

s, min
Area (2):
Concrete crushing-Steel
yielding: s>y; frp<frpu

frp=frpu
1

Area (3): FRP rupture: frp>frpu

Pnorm

0
0

4. Experimental results and discussion

4.1.1. Control specimens

Results showed that all of the unstrengthened control specimens (S-1, S-2, and S-3) failed in exure by concrete crushing at
the top surface after yielding of internal steel reinforcements.
However, observations for the rst crack and the ultimate load
were different. At a jacking load of 125, 90, and 67 kN, the rst visible tension crack was observed on specimens S-1, S-2, and S-3,
respectively. This crack appeared along the short direction of the
tension side (bottom surface of the specimen) at column location.
With increase in the applied load, more tension cracks were observed away from the column location. These bottom cracks penetrated through the slab thickness towards the compression side
(top surface of the specimen) with increase in the applied load.
Crack propagations on the vertical side of the free edge of the slab
were also observed. With increase in the applied load, slab deection and strains were observed increasing and concrete cracks on
the vertical side of the slabs continued to widen and penetrate into
the slab thickness till concrete crushed at the top surface of the
specimens S-1, S-2, and S-3 at column location at jacking loads of
164, 151, and 113 kN, respectively.
In order to compare the results of specimens, the normalized
ultimate load should be used to account for the effect of different
compressive strength utilized in these specimens as shown in Table 1. Since the failure in specimens was all due to exure, the normalized ultimate load is obtained by [22,23]:

As stated earlier, CFRP sheets were bonded to the tension side of the slab at column location which is the top surface of the slab in a building. However, the specimens were inverted in the test setup to simplify the testing procedure as shown in
Fig. 6. In this case, the specimens rest over 4 supports at the slab corners, while
jacking load was applied on top of the column and a 450-kN load cell was used
to record the applied load. Fig. 6 shows a schematic diagram of the test setup.
The instrumentations used for these tests include steel strain gauges located on
the bottom layer steel reinforcement (tension steel), concrete strain gauges to measure concrete strains on top concrete ber in the compression side of the slab, and
linear variable differential transformers (LVDTs) to measure slab deection. Steel
and concrete strain gauges were located in long and short directions to study the
behaviour of the slab in both directions to evaluate the signicance of one-way action of the slab. Eleven steel strain gauges were installed in the long direction of
each test specimen to record the transverse strain distribution. Fig. 7 shows locations of these sensors in the three slabcolumn types considered in this study.
The following steps were considered in each test: (i) the specimen was accurately placed over the four corner supports; (ii) LVDTs were placed in their marked
positions to measure deections; (iii) steel strain gauges, concrete strain gauges,
LVDTs, and load cell were connected to the data acquisition system; and (iv) the
jacking load was applied monotonically in increments and crack initiation and crack
propagation were marked. The specimen was considered failed when it could not
absorb more jacking load. Fig. 8(a)(f) shows views of specimens during testing
or after failure.

Table 2
Properties of CFRP composite laminate.

3.4. Test setup, instrumentation, and test procedure

4.1. General behaviour and the effect of column eccentricity

0
ecu
d c
h; e0s
ecu 6 ey ; efrp efrpu
ecu efrpu
c

where efrpu is the CFRP ultimate strain equals to 1.21% as shown in Table 2. The states
corresponding to the steel and CFRP reinforcement ratios used for the test specimens
are shown in Fig. 5. The associated point to control specimens S-1 to S-3 with
qs = 1.02% is located on the horizontal axis showing the preferred under-reinforced
behaviour. The CFRP reinforcement ratios qfrp were 0.53%, 0.43%, and 0.33% applied
for specimens S-4, S-5, and S-6, respectively, such that all the three CFRP-strengthened specimens be located on the preferred Area (2) which is outside of the CFRP
rupture Area (3) as shown in Fig. 5.

10

11

Steel reinforcement ratio (s=As/bd), %

Fig. 5. Flexural failure modes of CFRP strengthened one-way slab.

12

Pu

a1 b1 fc0

where Pu is the ultimate experimental jacking load. With the comparison of the values calculated for Pnorm as tabulated in Table 3, the
normalized ultimate loads of specimens S-2 with column eccentricity and S-3 with edge column are 9% and 31%, respectively, less than

H.A. El-Enein et al. / Construction and Building Materials 57 (2014) 126137

131

bution was obtained using elastic linear nite-element analysis

using SAP2000 software [24] incorporating shell elements to model
the slabs of the tested specimens. Such stress distribution is shown
in Fig. 9 in the form of normalized exural stress. It should be noted
that the slab exural stresses were rst obtained from SAP2000
software at column location and then divided by the maximum
exural stress (smax) to obtain a normalized stress distribution to
facilitate the comparison between results. Fig. 9 clearly shows the
effect of column eccentricity on the exural stress distribution
which conrms the experimental ndings of the difference between
jacking loads at the initiation of visible cracks of 125, 90, and 67 kN
obtained for specimens S-1, S-2, and S-3, respectively. Also, results
show that steel bars at column location would yield rst before
those away from column location. Moreover, concrete crushing
would start rst at column location and extend away from the column to the sides of the slab.

Fig. 6. Schematic diagram of the test setup.

that for specimen S-1 with central column. A signicant reduction

in the cracking and ultimate load was observed as a result of changing the column location to be closer to the edge of the slab. A nonuniform exural stress distribution across slab cross-section was
observed for all specimens as the column shift away from the column, as expected. To illustrate this nding, the exural stress distri-

4.1.2. CFRP-strengthened specimens

The strengthened specimens S-4, S-5 and S-6 showed similar
mode of failure (i.e. exure failure) as that for control specimens
but with a delay in the appearance of visible cracks as a result of
the presence of CFRP sheets. Due to the presence of CFRP sheets,
it was difcult to observe the crack initiation in the CFRP-covered
areas. However, the rst visible cracks at the free side of the slabs
were noticed at 154, 125, and 105 kN for specimens S-4, S-5 and
S-6, respectively. While, the ultimate jacking loads were recorded

(a)

(b)

(c)

- All dimensions are in mm

CL: Concrete strain gauge in longitudinal direction; CS: Concrete strain gauge in short direction
SL: Steel strain gauge in longitudinal direction;
SS: Steel strain gauge in short direction ;LV: LVDT
Fig. 7. Location of internal and external instruments: (a) steel strain gauges, (b) concrete strain gauges, (c) location of LVDTs to measure vertical deection.

132

H.A. El-Enein et al. / Construction and Building Materials 57 (2014) 126137

(a) Specimen S-1 after failure

(d) Specimen S-4 after failure

(b) Specimen S-2 during test

(e) Specimen S-5 after failure

(c) Specimen S-3 during test

(f) Specimen S-6 after failure

Fig. 8. Views of all specimens during test and after failure.

as 221, 208, and 189 kN for specimens S-4, S-5 and S-6, respectively. These loads are summarized in Table 3.
Similar to control specimens, the ultimate jacking load of the
CFRP-strengthened specimens decreased as the column eccentricity increased. However, the rate of change in ultimate load carrying
capacity was observed to be less in slabs strengthened with CFRP
sheets. Since different concrete strengths were used in CFRP-

strengthened specimens, the normalized ultimate loads calculated

by Eq. (4) should be used when comparing the specimens. Compared to specimen S-4 with central column, the reduction in Pnorm
as shown in Table 3 was about 4% and 13% for specimens S-5 with
eccentric column and S-6 with edge column, respectively. None of
the specimens experienced CFRP rupture except specimen S-5. It
was observed in specimen S-5 that at the ultimate stage of loading

Table 3
Summary of theoretical and experimental results.
Specimen

Pcrackinga (kN)
Exp.

a
b
c
d
e
f
g

Pyb (kN)

Penorm

Puc (kN)

Py/Pu

Deection (mm)
f

Ductility

Dug

Theory

Exp.

CSA (2012)

Exp.

Exp.

Exp. (%)

Dy

S-l
S-2
S-3

24 2
23.3
20.1

118.8
118.8
118.6

125.5
112
86

139.6
139.6
138.8

165.6
151.1
112.7

6.01
5.49
4.17

76
74
76

14.4
13.3
17.4

28.2
35.2
52.0

2.0
2.6
3.0

S-4
S-5
S-6

33.4
29.4
23.7

177.3
166.1
155.0

180
171
138

251.3
229.4
208.5

220.8
207.7
188.6

8.02
7.68
6.97

82
82
73

14.8
15.4
15.7

23.2
23.3
29.7

1.6
1.5
1.9

Cracking load.
Steel yielding load.
Ultimate load.
Value obtained from experiment.
Normalized ultimate load = Pu/(a1 b1 fc0 ).
Deection at steel yielding load.
Deection at ultimate load.

H.A. El-Enein et al. / Construction and Building Materials 57 (2014) 126137

133

prior to concrete crushing, debonding followed by the CFRP rupture occurred at the longitudinal CFRP strip with 150 mm width
on the short side of the column denoted as sheet C in Fig. 4(b). A
view of CFRP rupture at this location is shown in Fig. 10. This
may be attributed to the fact that this location exhibited the highest exural stresses across the slab cross-section, leading peeling
off the CFRP sheet followed by concrete crushing at the compression side of the slab.

4.2. Loaddeection behaviour and ductility

Deections were measured by LVDTs at certain locations along
the slab as shown in Fig. 7(c). Fig. 11 presents the loaddeection
relationships for all tested specimens, at a point in the slab along
the slab longitudinal axis passing through the column centroid
and 400 mm away from it, namely LV1 and LV4, respectively. It
can be generally observed that at a certain load level, slab deection decreased as a result of the presence of the CFRP sheets. This
may be attributed to the contribution of the CFRP sheets in increasing slab exural stiffness.
The formation of the initial cracks in the slab usually occurs in a
load level (Pcracking) much less than the ultimate load due to the low
splitting strength of the concrete compared to the concrete compressive strength. While the rst exural crack was observed visually during testing, it can be obtained from the loaddeection
curves where there is a sudden change in the slope of the initial
portion of the curve as a result of reduction in slab exural stiffness
for cracked section. The cracking loads were then obtained from
the loaddeection curves and tabulated in Table 3. It can be observed that these cracking loads are much less than those obtained
from visual inspection during testing. In addition to the cracking
load, the steel-yielding load (Py) can also be obtained from load
deection curves where the slope of the curves starts to change
once again in a load level much greater than the cracking load.
The yielding load, Py, was then obtained and summarized in Table 3.
The corresponding deection is denoted by Dy in Table 3 as obtained for LV1. In addition, the ultimate load and corresponding
deection denoted by Pu and Du, respectively, are reported in
Table 3.
One clear observation in Fig. 11 is the pre-yielding stiffness of
specimens which is the slope of the loaddeection curve after
the cracking load (Pcracking) and before the yielding load (Py). For
both CFRP-strengthened and control specimens, the pre-yielding
stiffnesses of specimens with central column (i.e. S-1 and S-4)
are almost identical to those with eccentric column (i.e. S-2 and
S-5). However, the specimens with edge column demonstrated

Normalized stress (s /smax,c)

1.2
1

0.8

Fig. 10. Rupture in CFRP at failure of specimen S-5.

lower pre-yielding stiffness, which is much more signicant in

the case of control specimens (i.e. specimen S-3 compared to S-1
and S-2, and also specimen S-6 compared to S-4 and S-5). This
may be attributed to the non-uniform exural stress distribution
in the transverse direction as mentioned earlier. At any given load
being Pcracking or Py, considering the non-uniform stress distribution, those sections close to the column fully contributed in carrying load while the farther sections from the column did partially
contribute. Consequently, Dy obtained for specimen S-3 was
17.4 mm which was much more than 14.4 and 13.3 mm obtained
for specimens S-1 and S-2, respectively, since the pre-yielding stiffness of specimen S-3 is much smaller than those for S-1 and S-2.
However, this nding was less signicant in CFRP-strengthened
specimens since the presence of CFRP sheets would alleviate the
effect of non-uniformity of exural stresses after concrete cracking
as mentioned earlier. For specimen S-6, Dy was obtained as
15.7 mm compared to 14.8 and 15.4 mm obtained for specimens
S-4 and S-5.
Table 3 also includes the ductility for each specimen, which is
dened as ultimate deection divided by the yield deection
(l = Du/Dy) [25]. As it can be observed in Table 3, ductility increased with the increase in column eccentricity in control specimens. Ductility was obtained as 2.0, 2.6, and 3.0 for specimens
S-1, S-2, and S-3, respectively. When specimens started to yield,
those sections close to column stub yielded rst and the rest of
the slab cross-section gradually experienced yielding due to nonuniformity in the transverse stress distribution. Therefore, specimens S-2 and S-3 showed more softening behaviour after yielding
deection (Dy) as shown in Fig. 11 which is the main reason for
more ductility observed in those specimens compared to S-1. However, the effect of column eccentricity on the observed ductility
was less signicant in CFRP-strengthened specimens. The ductility
obtained for specimen S-6 was 1.9 compared to 1.6 and 1.5 for S-4
and S-5, respectively. This may be attributed to the effect of CFRP
sheets in limiting the tendency of the section to undergo relatively
wide cracks after steel yielding which eventually reduces the ultimate deection, Du.
4.3. Effect of CFRP strengthening

0.6
0.4

Central column (Specimen S-1)

Eccentric column (Specimen S-2)
Edge column (Specimen S-3)

0.2
0

200

400
600
800
Location across slab (mm)

1000

Fig. 9. Elastic transverse stress distribution at face of column.

Application of CFRP strips to strengthen the control specimens

signicantly increased the ultimate load capacity, Pu, and yielding
loads, Py. Summary of CFRP effect on each type of the slabs is depicted in Table 4. The cracking load, Pcracking, at which the concrete
started to crack at the tension side was mainly affected by the section modulus dened as S = I/y where I is the transformed moment
of inertia and y is the distance of the extreme tensile bre of concrete from neutral axis. The application of CFRP sheets would increase I and decrease y, that subsequently increase the section
modulus. The amount of CFRP sheets used in specimen S-4 was

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H.A. El-Enein et al. / Construction and Building Materials 57 (2014) 126137

250

250

S-1
S-2
S-3

200

Applied load (kN)

Applied load (kN)

200

S-4
S-5
S-6

150

100

150

100

50

50

(a) No CFRP, LVDT No. 1 (LV 1)

(b) With CFRP, LVDT No. 1 (LV 1)

0

0
0

10

20

30

40

50

60

10

250

30

40

50

60

250

S-1
S-2
S-3

S-4
S-5
S-6

200

Applied load (kN)

200

Applied load (kN)

20

Deflection (mm)

Deflection (mm)

150

100

50

150

100

50

(d) With CFRP, LVDT No. 4 (LV 4)

(c) No CFRP, LVDT No. 4 (LV 4)

0

0
0

10

20

30

40

50

60

Deflection (mm)

10

20

30

40

50

60

Deflection (mm)

Fig. 11. Loaddeection relationships for all specimens (note: LVDT locations are shown in Fig. 7c).

more than that used in S-5, and the amount of CFRP sheets in S-5
was more than that in S-6. Therefore, the increase in section modulus was highest in specimen S-4 and was lowest in specimen S-6.
This trend was observed in experimental results as the cracking
load was affected by 38%, 26%, and 18% in specimens with central,
eccentric, and edge column, respectively, with the application of
CFRP sheets as shown in Table 4.
After concrete cracking, CFRP sheets further engaged the sections farther from the column stub by relaxing the non-uniformity
of exural stress distribution along slab cross-section. This augmented the contribution of CFRP strengthening in increasing yielding and ultimate loads when the column stub shifted from center
to the edge of specimen. As shown in Table 4, the yielding load
of specimens with central, eccentric and edge column increased
by 43%, 53% and 60% with the application of CFRP sheet strengthening, respectively, while the ultimate load carrying capacity increased by 33%, 40%, and 67%, respectively. The increase in slab
strength and stiffness with the application of CFRP sheets was attained at the expense of reduction in ductility as shown in Table 4.
This nding is in agreement with the ndings of other researchers
as the application of CFRP strengthening decreases ductility
[15,16]. Although the order of strength gained is much more than
the loss of ductility, the designer should consider loss of ductility
when selecting CFRP reinforcement ratio depending on the desired
application.
4.4. Strain measurements
Steel and concrete strains were measured by strain gauges installed in the long and short directions as shown in Figs. 7(a) and
(b). Steel strain gauges were installed only on the reinforcement located on the tension side of the slab, and concrete strain gauges
were attached to the concrete compression side. Selective steel

and strain results are depicted in Fig. 12 representing the areas

of high stress concentration. Fig. 12(a)(c) shows a comparison between jacking loadstrain curves on the long direction for specimens with central, eccentric, and edge column, respectively.
Fig. 12(d) provides a sample of strain readings in the short direction of specimens with central column. It can generally be observed that at a given load, steel and concrete strains decreased
as a result of the presence of the CFRP sheets. This may be attributed to the contribution of the CFRP sheets in increasing slab
strength and stiffness and relieving some tensile stresses in the
steel bars, as compared to those for the control specimens.
In addition, Fig. 12 shows that reinforcing steel bars yielded in
the long direction, irrespective of the presence of CFRP strengthening, demonstrating an under-reinforced behaviour for which specimens were originally designed for. However on the short
direction, there was no yielding observed in steel strains. For
example, the maximum strain was recorded as bout 1100 microstrain in Fig. 12(d) which is signicantly smaller than the conventional value of 2000 microstrain used as yield strain of reinforcing
steel. In addition, comparison between Fig. 12(d) and (a) for steel
strains in the short and long directions, respectively, in the specimens with central column shows that the specimen behaviour
was one-way, as expected. Although the strain in the short direction is given only for slabs with central column, similar ndings
were observed for other specimens.
The transversal distribution of longitudinal steel strain is shown
in Fig. 13(a)(c). The horizontal axis represents the strain gauge
numbers shown in Fig. 7(a). Although strain readings are usually
affected by crack propagation and crack interception, the general
trend could be understood from those gures which could be compared with those shown in Fig. 9 as obtained from nite-element
modeling. Steel strain distributions are shown at 20%, 40%, 60%,
and 80% of the ultimate load, Pu. As stated earlier, the steel strains

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H.A. El-Enein et al. / Construction and Building Materials 57 (2014) 126137

Table 4
Effect of CFRP strengthening.
Column location

Strength effect

DPcracking (%)

DPy (%)

DPu (%)

Dl (%)

Central
Eccentric
Edge

S-4/S-1
S-5/S-2
S-6/S-3

38
26
18

43
53
60

33
40
67

20
43
37

250

250

(a)

No CFRP

(b)

With CFRP

Applied load (kN)

Steel strain
150

100

Concrete
strain

Steel strain
150

100

Concrete
strain
50

50

0
-5000

5000

10000

0
-5000

15000

Concrete and steel microstrain

5000

10000

15000

Concrete and steel microstrain

250

250

(c)

No CFRP

With CFRP

No CFRP

(d)

200

With CFRP

200

Applied load (kN)

Applied load (kN)

With CFRP

200

200

Applied load (kN)

No CFRP

150

Steel strain

Concrete
strain
100

Steel strain
150

Concrete
strain
100

50

50

0
-5000

5000

10000

0
-5000

15000

5000

10000

15000

Concrete and steel microstrain

Concrete and steel microstrain

Fig. 12. Concrete and steel strain distributions in the longitudinal direction of various column locations: (a) central, (b) eccentric, (c) edge; and (d) central in the short
direction.

3000

3000

No CFRP
With CFRP

2500

(a)

Tenisle microstrain

Tenisle microstrain

2500
2000
1500

60% Pu

1000
Column
stub locatin

500

40% Pu

80% Pu

2000
1500
60% Pu
1000
40% Pu
20% Pu

20% Pu
1

10

11

12

Strain gauge number

3000

Tenisle microstrain

10

11

12

Strain gauge number

No CFRP
With CFRP

2500

Column
stub locatin

(b)

500

0
0

No CFRP
With CFRP

80% Pu

80% Pu

(c)

60% Pu

2000
1500

40% Pu

1000
20% Pu
Column
stub locatin

500
0
0

10

11

12

Strain gauge number

Fig. 13. Transverse distribution of longitudinal strain in steel bars on the tension side of the slab at column face of specimens with: (a) central column, (b) eccentric column,
and (c) edge column (note: strain gauges locations are shown in Fig. 7a).

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H.A. El-Enein et al. / Construction and Building Materials 57 (2014) 126137

in the CFRP-strengthened members are generally less than those

for control specimens which is the general trend depicted in
Figs. 13(a)(c) with few exceptions. One exception is the reading
of strain gauges number 13 shown in Fig. 13(c), showing that
the presence of CFRP sheets engaged more those regions that are
far from the location of applied load. This was previously mentioned to be one of the reasons of signicant increase of 67% in
the ultimate load of specimen S-6 with CFRP strengthening compared to that obtained for specimen S-3 without strengthening,
as shown in Table 4.
5. Analysis of results
Since the failure occurred in all cases due to exural failure
rather than punching shear failure, the exural resistance is only
calculated herein. The conventional cross-sectional analysis is
undertaken assuming full one-way slab action to calculate the ultimate moment capacity (Mu) of the slab at a section on the face of
the column. Then, from the statics of the test setup, Pu was obtained as 2Mu/L where L was the clear distance of the supports
from the column in the long direction equal to 750 mm, as shown
in Fig. 6.
Following the conventional approach specied by CSA S80612 [20] for the one-way exural capacity of the steel-reinforced
specimens, the ultimate theoretical Pu was calculated and tabulated in Table 3. The small difference between Pu calculated for
specimen S-3 with the other two specimens S-1 and S-2 is due
to the slightly different concrete compressive strength of specimen S-3. For specimen S-1 with the centric column, the calculated ultimate load was 139.6 kN compared to 165.6 kN
obtained from experiment, with the experimental value 19%
greater than the predicted value for specimen S-1. However,
the experimental ultimate loads were 8% larger and 19% smaller than the theoretical ultimate loads for specimens S-2 and S3, respectively. This percentage difference from one specimen
to another is mainly due to the uneven transverse distribution
of exural stresses at column location in the tested specimens
that is augmented with increase in column eccentricity. It
should be noted that the theoretical Pu was calculated using
CSA S806-12 provisions considering uniform exural stress distribution in the transverse direction at column location which
contradicts with the uneven stress distribution shown in Figs. 9
and 13.
For CFRP-strengthened specimens, the one-way exural resistance is calculated in accordance with CSA S806-12 [21] considering the presence of CFRP sheets. As specied by CSA S806-12 [21],
the maximum tensile strain in the CFRP sheets is taken as:

efrp;max

s
fc0
0:41
6 0:007
nfrp Efrp tfrp

where nfrp and frp are number and thickness of CFRP sheets. In
accordance with the material properties mentioned earlier, efrp,max
is obtained as 0.007 for all CFRP-strengthened specimens, which
is 42% smaller than the ultimate tensile strain of CFRP sheets shown
in Table 2. The calculated ultimate loads shown in Table 3 for specimens S-4, S-5, and S-6 are 251.3, 229.4, and 208.5 kN, respectively,
which are 14%, 10%, and 10% larger than those obtained experimentally, respectively. It can be concluded that (i) the conventional
cross-sectional analysis overestimates the real exural capacity of
CFRP-strengthened one-way slabs, (ii) when CFRP sheets are applied, the effect of column eccentricity on the cross-sectional analysis decreases signicantly compared to steel-reinforced
specimens. In addition to the ultimate load (Pu), the yielding load
(Py) was calculated and summarized in Table 3. In the calculation
of Py, the conventional approach was undertaken with linear stress

distribution in concrete under compression with no concrete tensile

resistance. The maximum tensile strain in all CFRP-strengthened
specimen at Py was calculated as 3.2 microstrain which is far less
than efrp,max = 0.007.
The experimental and theoretical Py for centric (i.e. S-1 and S4) and eccentric specimens (i.e. S-2 and S-5) are quite similar
while they are different in case of specimens with edge column.
In control specimen S-1, the theoretical Py is 6% smaller than
that obtained from experiment, while it is 6% and 28% larger
for S-2 and S-3, respectively. In case of CFRP-strengthened specimens S-4 and S-5, this ratio is only 2% and 3% smaller than
those obtained experimentally, while it is 11% greater for specimen S-6. Hence, with the application of CFRP strengthening, similar to the trend of Pu, the experimental Py could be better
estimated by theoretical calculations particularly for specimens
with edge column where there is signicant transverse stress
non-uniformity. This may be due to the effect of CFRP sheets
which alleviates the non-uniform transverse stress distribution,
leading to better cross-section engagement to increase slab exural capacity.
6. Conclusions
The feasibility and effectiveness of using CFRP sheets for exural strengthening of RC slabcolumn connections was investigated for at slabs with drop beams in one direction. The
following conclusions may be drawn from the experimental
study:
1. The proposed strengthening technique using CFRP sheets as
tension reinforcement applied on the region of slabcolumn
connection was proven to be effective in increasing the exural
strength and stiffness of one-way slabcolumn connections.
The proposed CFRP wrapping around column to the bent portions of the discontinuous CFRP sheets along the column width
is proved as effective anchorage details to maintain full exural
capacity of the strengthened slab.
2. The presence of CFRP sheets signicantly reduces slab deection and increases both the yielding load and the ultimate load
carrying capacity of the slabcolumn connection. The experimental ultimate load increased by 33%, 40%, and 67% for specimens with central, eccentric and edge columns, respectively,
after strengthening. However, there was a reduction in specimen ductility of about 20% for the specimen with central column compared to about 40% in specimens with eccentric or
edge column.
3. Experimental results demonstrated that column eccentricity
considerably reduced the ultimate load and increased ductility.
This is due to the uneven transverse distribution of exural
stresses at column location. However, the presence of CFRP
sheets alleviated the effect of column eccentricity.
4. The conventional cross-sectional analysis specied by CSA
S806-12 overestimated the experimental exural capacity of
CFRP-strengthened one-way slabs, leading to un-conservative
design practices. The column eccentricity increased the difference between the predicted values and experimental results.
Based on experimental ndings, a reduction factor may be
applied to the calculated exural capacity using CSA S806-12
to match experimental ndings.
Acknowledgements
The in-kind contribution of Fyfe Co., LLC The Fibrwrap Company, San Diego, CA, USA., and Watson Inc. of New York, USA., is
greatly appreciated.

H.A. El-Enein et al. / Construction and Building Materials 57 (2014) 126137

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