Repair of Bridge Girders with Composites: Experimental and Analytical Validation

This paper deals with a laboratory study to investigate the flexural behavior of full-scale damaged prestressed concrete (PC) bridge girders upgraded with externally bonded carbon fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP) laminates. The experiments described in the paper concern tests on three beams: one was used as the control beam and the other two, damaged by removing the concrete cover and by cutting two and four strands, respectively, were repaired with CFRP laminates. Analytical predictions compared to tests results in terms of flexural capacity, deflections, strains, and failure modes are discussed. The results indicate that the used upgrade technique is structurally efficient in providing the damaged beams with stiffness and strength very close to that of the original undamaged beam.