Proceeding of

Brunei International Conference on Engineering and Technology, Institut Teknologi Brunei, Brunei
Darussalam, November 1-3, 2014.

FLEXURAL STRENGTHENING OF RC BEAMS USING NEAR

SURFACE MOUNTED FIBRE REINFORCED POLYMERS
S.E. El-Gamal*, A. Al-Nuaimi*, A. Al-Saidy*, A. Al-Lawati*
* Department of Civil and Architectural Engineering, College of Engineering, Sultan Qaboos University, P.O. Box 33, AlKhodh 123, Oman, E mails: sherif@squ.edu.om; alnuaimi@squ.edu.om; alsaidy@squ.edu.om; m044746@student.squ.edu.om

Keywords: Strengthening, Beams, Near Surface Mounted,

Fibre Reinforced Polymers.

Abstract
This paper presents an experimental study to investigate the
behaviour of Reinforced Concrete (RC) beams strengthened
in flexure with Near Surface Mounted (NSM) technique using
Glass and Carbon Fibre Reinforced Polymers (GFRP &
CFRP). An experimental program consisting of seven full
scale reinforced concrete beams were constructed and
strengthened in flexure with FRPs. The investigation included
three parameters; technique used (NSM or Hybrid), type of
FRP used (Carbon or Glass), and amount of FRP used. All
beams were tested under four point bending set-up. The test
results included behaviour, ultimate capacity, deflection,
cracking, and mode of failure. All strengthened beams
showed an increase in the capacity ranging between 55 and
133% compared with the reference beam. Most of the
strengthened beams had debonded in a sudden failure except
the NSM-GFRP strengthened beams. The NSM-CFRP
strengthened beams carried larger loads in terms of ultimate
capacity than the NSM-GFRP beams but they showed less
ductile behaviour. The NSM-GFRP strengthened beam,
however, showed good ductile behaviour with high deflection
values at ultimate load. This gave amble warning before
failure and can be considered as an advantage of
strengthening RC beams with NSM-GFRP system.

1 Introduction
Concrete structures in the Arabian Gulf countries and
other several places in the world are exposed to harsh
environmental conditions. This includes high temperatures,
humidity, and exposure to salt water as in the coastal
provinces of the Sultanate of Oman. These severe
environmental conductions result in significant deteriorations
of concrete structures at those regions. Consequently, the
rehabilitation and strengthening of these concrete structures
require materials that can withstand these severe conditions
for long time.
The advantages of fibre reinforce polymer (FRP)
materials such as high strength, light weight, and durability
make them a good choice in different strengthening
techniques. The near surface mounted (NSM) technique using
FRP bars (NSM-FRP) is one of the recent and promising
techniques that is currently used for the strengthening and the

rehabilitation of several RC concrete and masonry structures

[1-2]. In this technique, a groove is cut in the tension side of
the flexural element, and then the groove is partially filled
with a suitable adhesive. The GFRP bar is then inserted in the
groove and covered by a second layer of the adhesive.
The NSM technique has several advantages compared to
the externally bonded (EB) technique. The NSM technique
has less debonding problem and it does not need a lot of site
work as in the EB technique. In addition, the FRP bars in the
NSM technique are protected by concrete cover and adhesive
which make them less exposed to vandalism, temperature,
and damage. Furthermore, the surface of the strengthened
structure is almost unchanged. Due to these advantages, the
NSM-FRP technique is in many cases better than the EB-FRP
technique [3].
There are several research studies on the flexural
strengthening of RC structures using FRPs. Researches,
which focus on strengthening of RC structures using the NSM
technique and/or the EB technique and compare between
them are also available [4-8]. However, there is a lack of
researches that implement the hybrid system (NSM+EB) and
compare it with the NSM technique. Also, there is a lack of
research studies that investigate the utilization of GFRP in the
NSM technique and compare its behaviour with CFRP bars.
The objective of this research is to investigate the
flexural behaviour of RC beams strengthened in flexural with
FRPs. The effect of the following parameters are investigated
in this study; (a) technique used (NSM or Hybrid), (b) type of
FRP used (Carbon or Glass) and (c) the amount of FRP used
(one or two bars).

2 Experimental Work
2.1 Materials Used
2.1.1 Concrete
Ready mix concrete with a target concrete compressive
strength of 45 MPa was used. Compressive strength test and
tensile strength test were conducted using 6 cubes and
cylinders that were cast and cured according to [11]. Test
results show that the measured concrete compressive and
tensile strengths were 49.62 and 2.99 MPa, respectively.

Proceeding of
Brunei International Conference on Engineering and Technology, Institut Teknologi Brunei, Brunei
Darussalam, November 1-3, 2014.

Load

2.1.2 Steel Bars

For all beams, deformed steel bars of 12 and 8 mm
diameter were used as tension and compression steel
reinforcement, respectively. The yield strength of the steel
bars was obtained to be 480 MPa by testing specimens in the
laboratory. Steel bars of 8 mm diameters were used for
stirrups.

T8@100 mm

2-T8 mm

2-T12 mm
930 mm

500
2360 mm
2760 mm

2.1.3 FRP bars and sheets

Sand coated Carbon and Glass FRP bars of 2350 mm
length were used as a strengthening material. Table 1 presents
the characteristics of the CFRP and GFRP bars as provided by
the manufacturer. Carbon FRP sheets were also used as a
strengthening material. The ultimate load of the FRP sheets
was given by the producer to be 350 kN/m width. Figure 2
shows a photo of the carbon and glass FRP bars used in this
study.
Table 1: Characteristics of FRP bars used.
Characteristic
Minimum guaranteed tensile strength (MPa)
Nominal tensile modulus (GPa)
Tensile strain (%)
Nominal bond strength (MPa)
Nominal cross-sectional area (mm2)

CFRP
1431
120
1.33
16.5
71.26

GFRP
1100
52.5 2.5
2.15
14.0
71.3

CFRP bars

930 mm

Figure 1: Dimensions of test specimens and setup.

bars of CFRP (CNSMB1 and CNSMB2); two were
strengthened with one or two bars of GFRP (CNSMB1 and
CNSMB2). The last two beams were strengthened with a
hybrid technique of NSM and EB. The first was strengthened
with one CFRP bars and one CFRP sheet (CHYP). The
second was strengthened with one GFRP bars and one CFRP
sheet (GHYP). Table 2 and Figure 3 show the test matrix and
the cross section of the seven beams, respectively.
Table 2: Control and strengthened test specimens.
Strengthening
Strengthening
Equivalent Steel
reinforcement
reinforcement
ratio (%)
REF
0.427
CNSMB1
1 Bar
Carbon
0.561
CNSMB2
2 Bars
Carbon
0.695
GNSMB1
1 Bar
Glass
0.561
GNSMB2
2 Bars
Glass
0.695
CHYB
1 Bar + 1 Sheet
Carbon+Carbon
0.611
GHYB
1 Bar + 1 Sheet
Glass+Carbon
0.611
(where C: Carbon, G: Glass, NSM: Near Surface Mounted, HY: Hybrid, B:
Beam, 1: One FRP Bar, 2: Two FRP Bars)
Beam

GFRP bars
200
20

20

Figure 2: FRP bars and sheets used in this study.

2T8

2T8

2.1.3 Reinforcement Binder

Two types of resins where used in this work; MBRACE
Saturant epoxy resin for FRP sheets and MBRACE Laminate
Adhesive for FRP bars. They were used as a binder between
the fibres and concrete. The technical information for both
products can be found in [9, 10].

200

260

260

300

2T12

2T12

(a)

(b)

25

25
Epoxy CFRP or GFRP
200

200

2.2 Test specimens

This experimental study included the construction of
seven simply supported beams of 2003002760 mm (width
depth length). Each beam was reinforced with 12 mm
diameter deformed steel bars in the tension side and 8 mm
diameter deformed steel bars in the compression side. In
addition, all beams had shear reinforcement to avoid shear
failure. The dimensions and reinforcement details of all
strengthened beams are shown in Figure 1.
Out of the seven beams, one beam was unstrengthened
(REF). The remaining six beams were strengthened with
FRPs. Out of which, two were strengthened with one or two

300

20

20

2T8

2T8
260

260

300

2T12

2T12

(c)

25

(d)
85

300

25
CFRP sheet

Figure 3: Cross sections of the tested beams: (a) REF; (b)

CNSMB1 and GNSMB1; (c) CNSMB2 or GNSMB2; (d)
CHYP and GHYP.

Proceeding of
Brunei International Conference on Engineering and Technology, Institut Teknologi Brunei, Brunei
Darussalam, November 1-3, 2014.

2.3 Beams construction

2.4 Test set-up and instrumentation

After constructing all cages and before placing them in

the moulds, wood pieces (13 mm wide 20 mm depth) were
fixed at the bottom of the moulds to form the groove of the
NSM strengthened beams. After the placement of the steel
cages, concrete casting was conducted using the guidelines of
British Standard Code [11].

All beams were tested under four point bending test setup to failure as shown in Figure 6. The loading was applied
under a displacement control at a speed of (1 mm/min) using
an actuator. The measurement of all test data was recorded
using a static data logger and a computer at intervals of 1
second.

Concrete was poured in the moulds in three layers with

the usage of the vibrator to eliminate the presence of voids.
All specimens were cured in identical conditions for 28 days
before testing. Figure 4 shows the beams just after casting.

Two types of strain gauges were used for strain and

measurements. The first type of strain gauges was attached at
top of beams (mid-span) to measure concrete strain. The
second type of strain gauges was attached to the middle of
each bottom steel bars (before casting) to measure the strains
in the reinforcement. In addition, high accuracy LVDT was
attached on the first crack to measure the crack width.
Furthermore, three LVDTs were placed at bottom of the
beams to measure deflection.

Figure 4: Fresh concrete after casting

For all strengthened beams, the grooves were cleaned
from dust and loose materials before inserting the FRP bars.
The two components of the epoxy resin were pre-mixed and
the mixture was added to the beam's grooves before/after
installation of the FRP bars. Figure 5 shows some of the NSM
beam after the installation of the bars.

Figure 5: NSM beam after the installation of the bars.

For the hybrid beams with NSM bars and external layer
of FRP sheets, after installing the NSM bars as described
above and keeping for a week, the bottom surface of the
beams was roughened sufficiently using a grinder. Then, all
dust and loose materials on the surface were removed and
cleaned. The two components of the epoxy resin were premixed and the mixture was added to the beam's surface before
and after the installation of the FRP sheet.

Figure 6: Test set-up

3 Test Results and Discussion

Table 3 summarizes the results of the beams. The first
crack of the reference beam (REF) occurs at a load of about
20 kN. The beam failed by steel yielding at a load of about 56
kN followed by concrete crushing at a maximum load of 67
kN. The maximum measured deflection at yield was 11 mm,
while at concrete crushing it was about 58 mm. This big
difference demonstrates the good ductility of the reference
beam which is expected with steel reinforced concrete beams.
For all strengthened beams, the cracking loads range between
20 and 24 kN which were comparable with the reference
beam. This was expected as the cracking load depends mainly
on the gross moment of inertia of the beam which is not
significantly affected by adding the strengthening material.
Strengthening the beams increased the recorded yield loads
which ranged between 66 kN in GNSMB1 and 106 kN
CNSMB2 with an increase percent of about 18 to 89%,
respectively. The yield deflection, however, was slightly
affected as given in Table 3. The ultimate capacity of the
strengthened beams was significantly increased. This increase
ranged between a minimum value of 55% in beam GNSMB1
and 133% in beam CNSMB2. The number cracks at failure
was also increased in the strengthened beams. It ranged
between 19 to 35 cracks compared to only 15 in the reference
beam. In the coming sections, the effect of different
parameters will be discussed.

Proceeding of
Brunei International Conference on Engineering and Technology, Institut Teknologi Brunei, Brunei
Darussalam, November 1-3, 2014.

Table 3: Summary of test results.

Beam
Name

Pcr Pyield yield Pmax Pmax Capacity No. of

kN (kN) (mm) (kN) (mm) increase cracks

REF

20

56

11

67

58

15

CNSMB1 22 91
CNSMB2 21 106
GNSMB1 20 66

11
11
9

116
156
104

22
26
61

73%
133%
55%

19
26
22

Failure
Mode
SYCC
SYDEB

SYCC
SYRUPb+
GNSMB2 20 83
11
136
54
103%
23
DEB
SY RUPs
CHYB
24 112 12
145
24
116%
35
DEB
SY RUPs
GHYB
23 98
11
125
22
87%
30
CC
Pcr: cracking load; Pyield: yield load; yield: yield deflection; Pmax: maximum
load; Pmax: deflection at maximum load; SY: steel yielding; CC: concrete
crushing; DEB: debonding of FRP bar; RUPb: rupture of FRP bar; RUPs:
rupture of FRP sheet.

3.1 Effect of the amount of FRP used

Figure 6 shows load versus mid-span deflections for
beam CNSMB1, CNSMB2 and REF. It can be noticed that
increasing the amount of FRP reinforcement increased the
capacity of the strengthened beams. Adding one or two CFRP
bars increased the capacity by 73 and 133%, respectively. The
mode of failure of CNSMB1 and CNSMB2 was similar. Both
beams failed by steel yielding followed by sudden debonding
of the CFRP bar; while the REF beam failed by steel yielding
followed by concrete crushing at collapse. The CFRP bars in
CNSMB1 and CNSMB2, however, did not totally split from
the beam. After checking the CFRP bars, it was observed that
the debonding happened between the external sand-coating
layer and the core of the CFRP bar. Figure 6 also shows that,
after cracking, the strengthened beams developed a slightly
larger initial stiffness than the REF beam. Increasing the
reinforcement increased the stiffness as expected. For
example; when comparing the deflection at service load
(assume 40 kN) with that measured in the reference beam it
was found that the deflections in CNSMB1 and CNSMB2
decreased by about 25 and 38%, respectively. After yielding
of the bottom steel reinforcement, the stiffness of the
strengthened beams was larger than that of the control beam
and it increased as the amount of reinforcement increased.
CNSMB1 and CNSMB2 behaved similarly to the reference
beam (REF) after the debonding failure but at a higher load
level because of the friction between bars and concrete.

Figure 6: Comparison between CNSMB1, CNSMB2 and REF

Figure 7 shows load versus mid-span deflections for

beams GNSMB1, GNSMB2 and REF. Again, it can be
noticed that increasing the amount of strengthening
reinforcement increased the capacity, stiffness after cracking,
and stiffness after steel yielding. The increase in the ultimate
capacity was about 55 and 103%, respectively, when one or
two GFRP bars were used. When comparing the deflection at
service load level (assume 40 kN) with that measured in the
reference beam it was found that the deflections in GNSMB1
and GNSMB2 decreased by about 8 and 15%, respectively.
The mode of failure of GNSMB1 and GNSMB2,
however, was not similar. GNSMB1 failed by steel yielding
followed by concrete crushing which was similar to that of
the reference beam. GNSMB2 failed by steel yielding
followed by rupture of the one of the GFRP bars and
debonding of the second bar. The two GFRP strengthened
beams showed high mid-span deflection at ultimate capacity.
For GNSMB1 and GNSMB2, the maximum measure
deflections at failure were 61 and 54 mm, respectively. These
high measured deflection values clearly show a good ductile
behaviour of both GNSMB1&2 which gives an amble
warning before failure. This can be considered an important
advantage of the RC strengthening beams with NSM-GFRP
bars.

Figure 7: Comparison between GNSMB1, GNSMB2 and REF

3.2 Effect of FRP type

The effect of the type of NSM-FRP bars used can be
clearly seen in Figure 8. It can be noticed that the beams
strengthened with CFRP bars gave higher capacity (about
30% increase) compared to the beams strengthened with
GFRP bars due to the higher strength of the CFRP bars. The
beams strengthened with CFRP bars also showed higher
stiffness after cracking and after yielding because of the
higher modulus of elasticity of the CFRP bars. The beams
strengthened with GFRP bars, however, showed much higher
mid-span deflection at failure (about 2 to 3 times) compared
to the beams strengthened with CFRP bars. These high
deflection values of the NSM-GFRP strengthened beam is a
big advantage as it shows much more ductile behaviour of
both GNSMB1&2. This gives an amble warning before
failure which is similar to the steel reinforced beam.

Proceeding of
Brunei International Conference on Engineering and Technology, Institut Teknologi Brunei, Brunei
Darussalam, November 1-3, 2014.

They type of FRP bars used also affected the mode of

failure of the strengthened beams. The CFRP strengthened
beams failed by steel yielding followed by sudden debonding
of the CFRP bars at low deflection values (22 &26 mm). The
GFRP strengthened beams, however, failed by steel yielding
followed by concrete crushing (GNSMB1) at a very high
mid-span deflection of 61 mm or by steel yielding followed
by rupture of the one of the GFRP bars and debonding of the
second bar (GNSMB2) at a high mid span deflection value of
54 mm. In general, it can be concluded that the NSM-CFRP
strengthened beams carried higher loads in terms of ultimate
capacity than the NSM-GFRP strengthened beams but they
showed much more brittle behaviour.

Figure 9: Effect of the type of FRP bars (Hybrid beams)

3.3 Effect of technique used

The hybrid beams gave higher slightly lower capacities
when compared with NSM beam with two bars. In addition,
the mode of failure of the hybrid beams was different from all
NSM strengthened beams. Figure 10 shows a comparison
between all CFRP strengthened beams based on the
strengthening technique used. It can be noticed that both
CNSMB2 and CHYB showed almost similar behaviour
before failure. CNSMB2 failed by debonding of the CFRP
bars at a maximum load of about 156 kN at a corresponding
deflection of 26 mm. The CHYB beam failed by rupture of
CFRP externally bonded sheet at a maximum load of 145 kN
at a corresponding deflection of 24 mm. It can be noticed that,
after the rupture of CFRP externally bonded sheet, the loaddeflection of the CHYB beam was similar to that recorded in
the CNSMB1 beam as expected. With respect to REF, the
increase in ultimate load capacity of CHYB and CNSMB2
was 116 and 133%, respectively. This indicates that adding an
extra NSM-CFRP bar (CNSMB2) was more effective than
adding an extra externally bonded CFRP sheet (CHYB).

Figure 8: Effect of the type of FRP bars (NSM beams)

Similar observations were recorded with beams GHYP
and CHYP reinforced with a hybrid system (NSM and EB).
Figure 9 shows that CHYP, reinforced with NSM-CFRP bars
and EB-CFRP sheet, had higher capacity and stiffness
compared to GHYP, reinforced with NSM-GFRP bar and EBCFRP sheet. The capacity increase was about 33%. The
mode of failure, however, was different. The CHYB beam
failed by steel yielding followed by rupture of the CFRP sheet
followed directly by debonding of the CFRP bar at a low
deflection value of about 29 mm. In the GHYB beam, it failed
by steel yielding followed by rupture of FRP sheet followed
by concrete crushing at collapse at a high deflection value of
about 75 mm. After the rupture of the FRP sheet, it can be
noticed that the CHYP and GHYP beams showed a similar
behaviour as beams CNSMB1 and GNSMB1 reinforced with
one NSM carbon or glass bar, respectively.

Figure 10: Effect of technique used (CFRP beams)

Figure 11 shows a comparison between all GFRP
strengthened beams. The three beams (GNSMB1, GNSMB2
and GHYB) failed at ultimate loads of 104, 136 and 125 kN,
respectively, with corresponding deflections of 61, 54 and 22
mm. It can be noticed that the GHYB beam had much more
brittle than the other two beams due to the rupture of the
externally CFRP sheet. It can be also noticed that, after

Proceeding of
Brunei International Conference on Engineering and Technology, Institut Teknologi Brunei, Brunei
Darussalam, November 1-3, 2014.

rupture of the CFRP sheet, the GHYB beam followed a

similar load-deflection curve as that of the GNSMB1 beam.

Figure 11: Effect of technique used (GFRP beams)

In general, it can be concluded that the hybrid system did
not show an extra advantage compared to the NSM technique.
It also needs more effort to roughness the surface of the beam
before bonding the FRP sheet. The NSM strengthening
technique gave higher capacities (with two bars) and better
ductility (in case of using GFRP bars).

4 Summary and Conclusions

To investigate the flexural behaviour of RC beams
strengthened by FRPs, seven full scale reinforced concrete
beams of 2003002760 mm (width depth length) were
constructed and strengthened with different types of FRPs.
The test parameters included the strengthening technique
(NSM and Hybrid), type of FRP used (carbon or glass) and
amount of FRP. Based on tests results of this research, the
following conclusions can be drawn:
All strengthened beams showed an increase in the ultimate
capacity compared to the reference beam. This increase
ranged between 55 and 133%.
The NSM-CFRP strengthened beams gave larger capacities
than the NSM-GFRP strengthened ones; however, they
showed much more brittle behaviour.
The NSM-GFRP strengthened beam showed a very good
ductile behaviour with high deflection values at ultimate
load which were almost similar or even higher than that
recorded in the reference beam. This gives amble warning
before failure and can be considered as an important
advantage of using GFRP bars in the NSM strengthening
technique.
When compared with REF, the increase in ultimate
capacity of the GNSMB1 and GNSMB2 was 55 and 103%,
respectively. Likewise, the increase in ultimate capacity of
the CNSMB1 and CNSMB2 was 73 and 133%,
respectively. This indicates that doubling the amount of the
FRP strengthening material increased the ultimate capacity
by about 85%.
The hybrid technique did not show an advantage compared
to the NSM technique. In addition, it needs more effort to

roughness the surface of the beam before bonding the FRP

sheet. The NSM strengthening technique gave higher
capacities (with two bars) and better ductility (in case of
using GFRP bars).
Debonding was the major problem associated with NSMFRP technique. In this study most of the strengthened
beams had deboneded in a sudden failure except the NSMGFRP beams which showed good ductile behaviour. It is
recommended to use strain control limits to prevent the
sudden collapse. In addition, it is recommended to conduct
more research to find ways to eliminate the deponding
problem in the NSM-FRP technique.
It is also recommended to conduct further research studied
on the use of GFRP bars as NSM reinforcement since it
significantly increased the capacity and showed good
ductile behaviour.

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