International Journal of Engineering Trends and Technology (IJETT) volume 5 number 3- Nov 2013

ISSN: 2231-5381 http://www.ijettjournal.org Page 140

Non-Linear Finite Element Analysis of RC Slabs
Strengthened with CFRP Laminates
Mustafa Basheer Mahmood
1,2
, V. C. Agarwal
3

1
Master Technology, Department of Civil Engg., SSET, Sam Higginbottom Institute of Agriculture, Technology &Science-DU,
Allahabad, India.
3
professor and head of Departmentof Civil Engg., SSET, Sam Higginbottom Institute of Agriculture, Technology &Science-
DU, Allahabad, India.
2
kirkuk University, kirkuk, Iraq.


Abstract The present study deals with the finite element
modelling of control RC slabs and strengthened slabs with
the help of ANSYS. ANSYS is software that is based on FE
method in which modelling of RC structures is done. In
this study, a control slab was modelled and the results
were analysed and then strengthened slabs were modelled
and analysed. The results of the control and strengthened
slabs were compared with the experimental results. It was
observed that the results of the strengthened slabs are in
close agreement with the experimental results.

KeywordsRC Reinforced Concrete, Strengthened Slabs,
CFRP Carbon Fibre Reinforced Polymer, Numerical
(ANSYS).

I. INTRODUCTION
Slabs are plane structural members whose thickness is
very small in comparison with its long and short spans .
In reinforced concrete structures , slabs are most
repeatedly used to forming roof covering , floors and
bridges. Slabs may be supported by walls or beams or
directly by columns . It usually carries uniformly
distributed gravity load acting normal to its span and
transfers same to the supports by flexure, shear and torsion.
Therefore because of its complex behaviour it is difficult to
decide whether the slab is a structural component , structural
element , or structural system in itself. Repair and
rehabilitation has become an important aspect for the
reinforced cement concrete structures because of the damage
in the RC structures occurs due to various reasons like
cracking of concrete, concrete or spalling due to large
deflections , change in design configuration , corrosion of
steel, increasing load on the structure , inferior building
material and environmental effects.
The following are the main objectives of the present study:
a) To model the reinforced concrete slabs called as control
slabs and the strengthened slabs with different reinforcement
using FEM.
b) To determine analytically the load deflection curve of
control slab and strengthened slabs.
c) To compare the results of control slabs and the strengthened
slabs and also compare the analytical results with the
experimental results.
II. LITERATURE REVIEW
Elsayed , et al., (2007) presented the finite element analysis
that was carried to simulate the non-linear load-deflection
behaviour and failure mechanisms for reinforced concrete
two-way slabs strengthened with externally bonded fibre
reinforced polymers. It was found that increasing the width of
FRP laminates led to decrease in the interfacial shear stress
and slips.
Kim, et al., (2008) studied the effectiveness of two-way
slabs strengthened with prestressed or non-prestressed carbon
fibre reinforced polymer (CFRP) sheets. . It was found that
failure of the control slab was very ductile and the
strengthened slabs failed because of the delimitation or partial
rupture of the CFRP sheets.
Kenneth , et al., (2011) presented the non-linear finite
element method of reinforced concrete members externally
strengthened with FRP which includes the flexure and shear
strengthening of beams and FRP strengthening of two-way
slabs.


III. MATERIALS AND METHODOLOGY
The finite element method is a numerical analysis technique
for obtaining approximate solutions to a wide variety of
engineering problems. ANSYS is a general purpose finite
element modelling package for numerically solving a wide
variety of problems which include static/dynamic structural
analysis (both linear and nonlinear), heat transfer and fluid
problems, as well as acoustic and electro-magnetic problems.
The Rectangular RC slabs with tensile reinforcement have
been analysed using a finite element (FE) model in ANSYS.
Here, a non linear analysis is considered throughout the study
by assuming that there is a perfect bonding between concrete
and steel reinforcement , and reinforced concrete with CFRP
laminates. The results fromthe numerical simulation are used
for comparison with the results from the experiment to
achieve the principle objective of studying the flexural
capacity behaviour of reinforced slabs strengthened with
CFRP laminates subjected to distributed line loading. The
experimental work done by Abarna Sivarajah, Anushka
Abeysinghe, Malith Lakshitha, Dr. Sujeewa L. including
five commercial material models was performed using this
numerical simulation study. ANSYS (version 13) has been
International Journal of Engineering Trends and Technology (IJETT) volume 5 number 3- Nov 2013

ISSN: 2231-5381 http://www.ijettjournal.org Page 141

chosen for the purpose of analysing RC slabs with and without
external CFRP strengthening in this study due to its flexibility
in geometry and materials modelling . . The Five reinforced
concrete slabs were loaded with a four point loading
configuration with a total length of 1530 mman effective
length of 1350 mm, and distance between loads of 450
mm. All slabs were 125 mm thickness, 500 mm wide .
Concrete cover 25 mm, two types of flexural steel
reinforcement were used in the slabs , the first type consist of
3 tor steel bars 10 mmin diameter and fy =460 Mpa , the
second type consist of 4 mild steel bars 6 mmin diameter and
fy =250 Mpa . Slabs details with CFRP laminates are shown
in figures (1. , 2., 3., 4.) .


Figure 1. : slab loading pattern



Figure 2. : CST, SST Cross section


Figure 3. : CSM, SSM1 Cross section

Figure 4. : SSM2 Cross section

The following has been used for the materials idealization:

A. Concrete Idealization
SOLID65 was used to model the concrete. the geometry,
node locations, and the coordinate systemfor this element are
shown in figure (5.).

B. Steel Reinforcement
LINK180 : is a 3-D spar that is useful in a variety of
engineering applications. LINK180was used to model the
steel reinforcement. The geometry, node locations, and the
coordinate systemfor this element are shown in Figure (6.).

C. Steel Plate
SOLID185 is used for 3-D modelling of solid structures.
It was used to model Steel plates were added at support and
point of loading locations The geometry and node location for
this element type are shown in Figure (7.).

D. CFRP Laminates
SHELL41 A four node element was used to model CFRP
strips which is a 3-D element having membrane (in-plane)
stiffness but no bending (out-of-plane) stiffness. The geometry
and node location of this element type are shown in Figure
(8.).


FIGURE 5. : SOLID 65
GEOMETRY





FIGURE 6. : LINK 180
GEOMETRY



International Journal of Engineering Trends and Technology (IJETT) volume 5 number 3- Nov 2013

ISSN: 2231-5381 http://www.ijettjournal.org Page 142



FIGURE 7. : SOLID 185
GEOMETRY






Figure 8. : SHELL 41
Geometry


RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
This chapter presents the results of Finite Element analysis
of two control RC slabs, three RC slabs strengthened with
CFRP bonded at the bottom face. Finite element analysis
(using ANSYS computer programversion 13.0) of RC slabs
under the static incremental loads has been performed in the
present work. Subsequently these results are compared with
experimental results. The following comparisons are made
with regards to deflection values as well as the detailed overall
behaviour of the of the slabs.

A. Loading And Boundary Conditions
In the experiment, the bearing plate of loading and support
dimensions are (50mmx 500mm). A 25 mmthick steel plate,
modelled using Solid185 elements, is added at the support and
point of loading locations in order to avoid stress
concentration problems shown in figure (9.). This provides a
more even stress distribution over the support and point of
loading areas. Figure (10.) shows the distribution of the
applied load at nodes.


Figure 9.: Applied load and boundary conditions (a)
Front view, (b) Top


Figure 10. : Distribution of applied load at nodes (a) nodes,
(b) elements

B. Results Of Finite Element Analysis
I took the numerical load-deflection curves for the mild
reinforced strengthened slab strengthened by two laminates in
comparison with the experimental results, shown in figure
(11.) as an example for the five models.


Figure 11. : Load-deflection curve for strengthened
slab_mild reinforcement2.

The deflection at (82 kN) obtained from the F.E. is a
flexural deflection of (6.2 mm), which is lower than the
experimental deflection of (8.2 mm) about 32.258%. The
other difference is the type of failure, where the experimental
International Journal of Engineering Trends and Technology (IJETT) volume 5 number 3- Nov 2013

ISSN: 2231-5381 http://www.ijettjournal.org Page 143

model failed by debonding the CFRP laminate the thing that
not observed in F.E model.
C. Ultimate Loads And Ultimate Deflection
A comparison between the ultimate loads of the tested
beams and numerical ultimate loads from finite element
analysis is shown in Table (1). The table shows, a good
agreement between the theoretical and experimental results,
and comparison between the ultimate deflections of the tested
beams and numerical ultimate loads from finite element
analysis is shown in Table (2).

Table (1) Comparison between experimental and
Numerical ultimate loads
Slabs
symbol
(Pu)exp.
(kN)
Pu)num.
(kN)
Difference
%
cs t 29.17 26.65 9.455
ss t 82.16 123.8 33.634
cs m 18.24 25.25 27.762
ss m1 48.56 71.8 32.367
ss m2 85.6 123 30.398

Table (2): Comparison between experimental and
Numerical ultimate Deflection

Slabs
Symbol

(u)exp.
(mm)

(u)num.
(mm)

Difference
(%)

cs t

5.68

3.25

74.769

ss t

13.95

15.3

8.823

cs m

1.30

0.58

125.137

ss m1

8.90

12.9

31.007

ss m2

8.66

11.2

22.678


IV. CONCLUSION
The following conclusions can be drawn from the present
study
1)The behaviour of slab represented by the load-deflection
curves in ANSYS show close agreement with the
experimental data fromthe full-scale RC slab tests.
2)It has been concluded that strengthening the slab with
CFRP, the slab also bears larger deflection and strengthening
the slab with CFRP sheet also increases the ultimate load
carrying capacity of the slab.
3) The analytical load carrying capacity of the control slab
was in close agreement with the experimental work.
4) The cracks start appearing at the centre and move from
centre towards the free edges of the slab. Major damage
occurred at the centre of the slab and negligible damage
occurred at corners.
5) Because of the strengthening techniques , the strengthened
slabs sst , ssm1 and ssm2 are shows high load carrying
capacity about 78.758% , 95.503% and 94.821% respectively
in comparison with control slabs.
6) The difference between numerical and experimental values
for loads and deflections gives negative values for the two
control slabs and positive values for the other strengthened
slabs and the reason for that is the existing of CFRP with
strengthened models in ANSYS program that makes the
programsolving for long time.

REFERENCES
[1] ACI committee 363R, (1997) State of The Art Report on High-
Strength Concrete, American Concrete Institute. Detroit, Vol. 81,
No.4
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Engineering Materials", West Lafayette, Indiana, , pp. 580 December
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Engineering Materials", West Lafayette, Indiana, , pp. 580 December
[6] Chen, W. F.,( 1982) "Plasticity in Reinforced Concrete", McGraw-
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[7] Elsayed, W., Usama A. E., and Kenneth W. N. (2007). "Interfacial
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[8] Gopalaratnam, V.S. and Shah. (1985) ,"Softening Response of Plain
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[9] Kenneth, W. N., Ahmed, G., Hussien, M. A. B., Walid, E. E., and
Usama, A. E. (2011) "Approaches for finite element simulations of
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[10] Kim, Y. J., Longworth, J . M., Wight, R. G., & Green, M. F. (2008)
"Flexure of two-way slabs strengthened with prestressed or non
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ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Foremost, I would like to thank my God for His
graciousness, unlimited kindness and with the blessings of
whomthe good deeds are fulfilled.
Finally I would like to dedicate this work to my family
and all my beloveds