An experimental study on strengthening reinforced concrete T-beams using new material poly-urethane-cement (PUC)

This paper presents a new type of material that can be used in many construction fields, especially for strengthening beams or bridge girders and retrofitting structural concrete elements. This material is called polyurethane-cement (PUC). The main purpose of using this new material is that it increases the capacity of beams and reduces crack propagation through the concrete. The first case involves a normal reinforced T-beam. The second case involves a control T-beam strengthened with PUC. The third case involves preloading a control T-beam (up to 50 kN), noting the occurrence of cracks (widths not exceeding 0.2 mm), releasing the load, and then strengthening the beam using PUC. The experiments show significant results: an excellent improvement in the loading capacity of around 170% and a crack width reduction of around 58%. FEM analysis results using ABAQUS software showed excellent agreement with experimental results.