Experimental Study of the Structural Behaviour of Reinforced Concrete Box Girder with the Using of Steel Plates Strengthening and Different Shapes of Cells

Abstract

The aim of this research is to study the effect of corrugated steel plate strengthening on the structural behavior of reinforced concrete box girder using corrugated steel plates with vertical and horizontal corrugation and studying the effect of the shape of cells using rectangular and circular shape with the same web width and strengthening the circular cell with flat plate. Five simply supported reinforced concrete box girders are casted using Self-compacting concrete and experimentally tested under four-point load. The box girder specimens are divided into two groups according to the steel strengthening and the shape of cells. The experimental results showed that in the first group, the using of the vertical and horizontal corrugated steel plates strengthening increased the ultimate load by (7.14% and 11.03%) respectively compared with the control box girder, and decreased the crack width, the results also showed that in the second group, the using of circular cell and circular strengthened cell increased the ultimate load by (17.85% and 29.22%) respectively compared with the control box girder with rectangular cell and decreased the crack width. All the box girders in the first and second group failed with diagonal shear.