This paper investigates the possibility of strengthening Reinforced Concrete (RC) beams under pure torsion loadings. The torsional behaviour of strengthened RC beams with near-surface mounted steel and CFRP bars was investigated. The verification with the experimental work was performed to ensure the validity and accuracy which revealed a good agreement through the torque-rotation relationship, ultimate torque, and rotation, and crack pattern. This numerical study included testing of thirteen specimens (one of them was control beams while the remaining 12 were strengthened beams) with several parameters such as mounting spacing and configuration. The analytical results revealed that the addition of NSM rebar redistributed the internal stresses and enhanced the ultimate torsional strength, torque-rotation capacity, ductility, and energy absorption of the concrete beams. Most of the strengthened beams revealed the appearance of the cracks at a phase less than the reference beam by an average of (9%). Concerning the NSM strengthening, the CFRP bars provided a higher enhancement ratio when compared with the beams that strengthened with NSM steel rebar especially for the strengthening space equal to 130 mm and more. The ultimate torsional strength increased by (3.5%) and rotation decreased by (4%) approximately when the steel rebar was replaced by the carbon bar. The ductility and energy absorption of the analysed beams showed that the strengthening enhanced the ductility of the twisted beams. The ductility values varied according to the method of strengthening used, as it showed the highest values of the beam that was strengthened small spacing.
This paper presents a nonlinear finite element analysis of reinforced concrete beams subjected to pure torsion. A verification procedure was performed on three specimens by finite element analysis using ANSYS software. The verification with the experimental work revealed a good agreement through the torque-rotation relationship, ultimate torque, rotation, and crack pattern. The studied parameters of strengthening by CFRP sheets included strengthening configurations and number of CFRP layers. The confinement configuration methods included full wrapping sheet around the beam, U-shaped sheet, ring strips spaced at either 65 or 130 mm, longitudinal strips at the top and bottom faces, U-shaped strips in addition to the number of layers variable. It was found that the performance of the beam for resisting a torsional force was improved by (33-49%) depending on the method of coating with CFRP sheets and the number of used layers. A change in the angle of twist, as well as the shape of the spread of cracks, was also noticed from the predicted results.