Reliability analysis of FRP strengthened RC beams considering compressive membrane action

Abstract Recent research has shown that the compressive membrane action (CMA) significantly enhances the load bearing capacity of FRP strengthened concrete beams. It is of great interest to investigate the effect of CMA on the structural reliability of such beams and how to incorporate the benefits of CMA into partial factor based design. Following a CMA model and the probabilistic models of its corresponding design variables, the effect of CMA on the reliability indices of FRP strengthened concrete beams was investigated. A parameter study as well as a sensitivity analysis were also conducted with parameters including properties of FRP and steel reinforcement, concrete properties and geometrical properties. The reliability indices with respect to load ratios i.e. ratios of the variable load to the total loads is selected to quantify the effect of CMA. The results show that the CMA effect significantly improves the structural reliability of FRP strengthened concrete beams. The parameter study indicates that an increase of the concrete strength and yield strain has positive effect on the structural reliability while an increase of FRP ratio, FRP modulus, steel ratio as well as the concrete ultimate strain has an adverse effect. Furthermore, it is found that the variations of the concrete strength, the FRP Young’s modulus as well as the concrete cover have a significant influence on the reliability index; the variations of the ultimate strain of FRP, the yield strain of steel reinforcement and the ultimate strain of concrete have a moderate influence on the reliability index. Finally, an adjusted partial factor for the FRP strength is derived for cases where CMA would already be considered in the design stage.