Evaluación y reparación de vigas de concreto reforzado de puentes en Costa Rica por medio de materiales FRP

Abstract

The use of fiber reinforced polymers (FRP) is a relative new technique in Civil Engineering, but they have shown significant increases in the ultimate strengths. This materials have higher mechanical properties than others regularly use in structural engineering; i.e. deformed steel bars. This project is about the retrofit design for reinforced concrete girders in the bridges of Costa Rica. The main steps in both flexural and shear retrofit design with FRPs are shown. In order to apply these technique, two bridges are studied under two different types of damages. With distinct analysis software, the Quebrada El Fierro Bridge is analyzed due to longitudinal cracking and the Río Kooper Bridge is analyzed under vertical corrosion. The procedures and methodology applied for these two bridges may be done for other bridges in Costa Rica with the same type of damages. By the end, two retrofit proposals are given, one per bridge. One of them is about adding regular reinforcement to a beam cross section and the other consists in wrapping the girder with FRP Jacketing. This is because not all the concrete cross sections need to be or must be repaired/retrofitted with FRP. There are other ways to deal with engineering problems.