| Four 2/3-scale reinforced concrete walls were constructed and tested to evaluate the effectiveness of the method of using externally epoxy bonded Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer Sheets (CFRP) for seismic retrofit and repair of reinforced concrete shear walls. The present experimental study is the second phase continuation of an earlier study at Carleton University on the feasibility of the strengthening and repair method of reinforced concrete shear walls by CFRP tow sheets. In the first phase of the research, out of plane bending behaviour of the test walls was observed, which had some effects on the ultimate lateral load capacities of the test specimens. In the present study, the out of plane bending behaviour of the test specimens is greatly reduced or eliminated by improvements to the experimental setup.; The experiments carried out in the present study include the cyclic load testing of a control wall, a repaired wall and three strengthened walls. The wall specimens were loaded until ultimate failure, defined as the softening behaviour of reducing by 80% of the maximum lateral load resistance capacity after reaching the peak load. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)... |
