Fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) materials have widespread use in many different areas of repair and strengthening of RC structures due to their many merits such as low unit weight, excellent corrosion resistance, high strength and ease of handling and application. However, these systems are scarcely applied for enhancing punching shear resistance for RC flat slabs. Moreover, the internationally available codes and guidelines do not recognize punching shear resistance as one of the domains for application of FRP strengthening systems. This research work is an attempt to widen the application of FRP in the field that was regarded as a prohibited area, i.e. enhancing the punching shar resistance of reinforced concrete slab-column connections.
In this work, an innovative system is introduced that utilizes FRP composites for enhancing the ultimate capacity of slabs supported on columns and subject to punching shear. The paper presents a detailed description of the developed solutions; in terms of
theoretical design, mode of failure, load transfer mechanism as well as practical implementation of the systems in the construction field. An experimental program was conducted in order to verify the effectiveness of the developed system. The experimental results demonstrate high effectiveness in enhancing punching shear resistance. Additionally, the developed strengthening system has the advantage of speed and ease of application, in addition to being versatile and can be extended for different design problems. By proving the effectiveness of the new system in shear strengthening; a new area of application has been introduced for FRP systems, that may be applied in a wide range of strengthening and retrofitting applications.