Shear strength of reinforced concrete beams strengthened in shear using externally-bonded FRP composites

A shear strength estimation model for reinforced concrete (RC) beams, the so-called dual potential capacity model (DPCM), has previously been proposed by the authors. In this study, the DPCM is extended to estimate the shear strength of RC beams strengthened in shear by using externally-bonded fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) composites. The proposed model has been derived so as to take into account the effects of the type of FRP composite, fiber-bonding configuration, and fiber layout, and it can also determine the critical shear failure modes of RC beams strengthened by externally-bonded FRP composites. To verify the accuracy of the proposed model, shear test results of 227 RC beams strengthened by externally-bonded FRP composites were collected from previous studies, and it is shown that the analysis results estimated by the DPCM agree well with those test results.