Rehabilitation of blast damaged pre-stressed concrete beams with fiber reinforced polymers (FRP)

Abstract

Damage to buildings due to blasts is a somewhat common occurrence in today’s context. When such damages occur, one option is to demolish the structure and then to reconstruct. However, a better approach from sustainability point of view is to rehabilitate the damaged structure with suitable means so that a lot of materials and time can be saved while reducing the creation of heaps of construction waste. Since the damages due to blasts are not so common, it is worth reporting sustainability approaches employed in every such occurrence. This paper will present one such rehabilitation work that has been carried out for a complete floor consisting of pre-stressed concrete beams with pre-tensioned wires that suffered heavily due to extremely high loads caused by a blast that occurred directly above it when a small plane carrying explosives was shot down.