Experimental Investigation on the Flexural Behaviour of Patched

Reinforced Concrete with Unsaturated Polyester Resin Mortar

AGUS Supriyadi1, a, STEFANUS Adi Kristiawan2,b and SANDY Raditya3,c
1

SMARTCrete Research Group, Civil Engineering Department, Sebelas Maret University, Indonesia

SMARTCrete Research Group, Civil Engineering Department, Sebelas Maret University, Indonesia
3

Civil Engineering Department, Sebelas Maret University, Indonesia

aguspri22@yahoo.com, bsa_kristiawan@uns.ac.id (corresponding author), csndy_r@ymail.com

Keywords: Cracks, flexural behaviour, patched reinforced concrete, stiffness, unsaturated

polyester resin mortar.

Abstract. This research is aimed to investigate the flexural behaviour of patched reinforced concrete
beam with patching material made from unsaturated polyester resin mortar. The variable studied is the
dimension of patching zone as compared to the control beam (without patching). Based on the
load-deflection observation of the beam under a four-point bending loading, it is confirmed that the
flexural behaviour of the patched reinforced concrete beam is similar to that of control beam at a
loading up to about peak load. After this load the patched reinforced concrete beam tends to behave
more ductile. The patched reinforced concrete beam show less cracking density compared to control
concrete.
Introduction
Reinforced concrete has been successfully utilized in many types of buildings as major structural
elements. After years in service these elements appear to indicate some sort of degradation due to a
variety of causes. Corrosion of reinforcement is one of the sources of degradation resulting in spalling
and delamination of concrete cover and also reducing the cross section area of reinforcement.
Consequently the capacity of reinforced concrete element is decreased and the element is only capable
to function at lower service load. Repair and rehabilitation of the deteriorated reinforced concrete
could be an option to recover its capacity and function. Patch repair may be applied for such situation.
Patch repair consists of removal of the corrosion affected area of concrete, cleaning of rust, and
restitution of the original geometry with a patch material [1].
Patch repair materials have been developed using various ingredients. Nowadays patch repair
materials may be categorized into cementitious based, polymer modified based and polymer based
mortar. The success of these materials for patch repair application relies on several properties. Such
materials should develop bond with the parent reinforced concrete and so they turn out to be a
composite system. When the patched repair reinforced concrete is under loading, the stress
distribution in the patched repair zone will be determined by the mechanical compatibility between
patch repair material and parent concrete. The desire property will be a similar elastic modulus
between the two materials. Lower modular ratio (i.e. ratio of elastic modulus of repair material to
concrete) generates lower stress distribution on repair material compared to that of concrete and vice
versa [2]. The dissimilarity in stress distribution could initiate cracks on the component with a higher
stress distribution which eventually leading to failure. The occurrence of cracks also reduces the
stiffness of the reinforced concrete resulting in high deflection.
It seems that similar elastic modulus is a necessity to recover the performance of patched
reinforced concrete to its original level. However, in practice similar elastic modulus may not be able
to be realized by certain repair materials. For example, unsaturated polyester resin mortar tends to
have a lower elastic modulus but a higher strength compared to parent concrete. It is suggested that
the higher strength of this material could offset the lower modular ratio in recovering the performance

of patched reinforced concrete. This paper investigates the possibility of using unsaturated polyester
resin mortar as patch repair material. At this stage the research observes the flexural behaviour of
reinforced concrete beam which has been patched with this material. The performance of the patched
reinforced concrete beam may be assessed based on its behaviour in term of capacity, stiffness,
toughness and cracking pattern as noted by previous investigators [3-4]. For the current research the
parameters studied include loading capacity, stiffness index, flexural ductility and cracking pattern.
The performance of the patched repair reinforced concrete will be compared with the control
reinforced concrete (without patching) to judge the feasibility of unsaturated polyester resin mortar as
patch repair material.
Materials and Method
Materials. Concrete material used for fabricating reinforced concrete specimens were
proportioned following the method proposed by Building Research Establishment [5] to attain a
target strength of 25 MPa. While unsaturated polyester resin (UPR) mortar used for patching
reinforced concrete was made from the following ingredients: sand, cement, fly ash and an
unsaturated orthophtalic type resin made from the polymerization of di-carboxylic acids with glycols.
The thermo-setting of this material is initiated by curing agent (hardener) which in this investigation
was proportioned at 3% by weight of unsaturated polyester resin. Table 1 shows proportion of this
patching material.
Table 1. Proportion of patching material
Cement
3

Fly Ash
3

Sand
3

UPR
3

Hardener
*

(%)
50

(kg/m )

(kg/m )

(kg/m )

(kg/m )

(%)

731,6

129,1

860,7

430,4

35,42

**

(kg/m3) ***
12,9

*% of total volume of mortar; ** % of total filler by weight; *** % of UPR by weight

Characterization of Mechanical Properties

Both concrete and UPR mortar used for fabricating beam specimens have been tested to determine
their mechanical characteristics. Table 2 shows these characteristics. It is clear from this table that
UPR mortar has high strength and low modular ratio to concrete.
Table 2. Characteristic of materials for fabricating beam specimen
Material
Concrete
UPR mortar

Compressive Strength
(MPa)
28.68
73.25

Elastic Modulus
(MPa)
23795
12533

Specimens. Three reinforced concrete beam specimens were cast for this investigation. The first
beam represents control reinforced concrete without patching (C). The other two beams represent
patched reinforced concrete beams where each of these beams has different patching zone (P1 and
P2). The dimension, reinforcements lay out and patching zone of the beams is illustrated in Fig. 1-3.
Patching material was applied after the parent reinforced concrete beam was at the age of 3 (three)
months.
Flexural Testing. All three types of beams were tested in a four-point bending setup where the
loading span was one-third of the support span. Loading was applied at an increment of 1000 kg.
After peak load was reached, loading was stop when the reinforcement showing plastic behaviour.
The deflection of the beams was recorded at every loading increment. Any signs of cracks were noted.

Cross section A-A

Cross section B-B

Fig. 1. Illustration of control reinforced concrete specimen (C)

Cross section A-A

Cross section B-B

Fig.2. Illustration of patched reinforced concrete specimen with first type of patching zone (P1)

Cross section A-A

Cross section B-B

Fig.3. Illustration of patched reinforced concrete specimen with second type of patching zone (P2)

Results and Discussion

Load-Deflection. The observed load and deflection are plotted as in Fig. 4. Interesting behaviour
is identified from this figure. Initially all three beams show almost similar load-deflection behaviour
but after about peak load each beam behaves differently. It seems that patched reinforced concrete
beam tends to show a higher peak load and also a higher deflection at failure load compared to that of
control beam. An increase in the length of patching zone will increase both peak load and deflection at
failure load. The similarity in the behaviour at initial load indicates that all three beams have about the
same stiffness. Stiffness is parameter that relates the deformation of structural element under loading.
This parameter is correlated with elastic modulus of the material for fabricating the element. Basically
material with a higher elastic modulus will give a higher stiffness resulting in a lower deformation and
vice versa as confirmed by Mangat and OFlaherty [2]. Hence, if material with a higher elastic
modulus is used for fabricating structural element such as reinforced concrete, then the stiffness of the
element must be a higher and the element will show a lower deformation or deflection. However, this
is not the case for patched reinforced concrete with UPR mortar. Even though elastic modulus of
patched reinforced concrete at the patching zone must be lower than that of control reinforced
concrete due to lower modular ratio at this zone, but the observed stiffness is similar. It is likely that
the lower modular ratio of patched reinforced concrete is offset by the cracking behaviour at the
patching zone as explained in the next section.

Fig 4. Load-deflection behaviour of beams under flexural loading

All three beams indicate ductile behaviour before failure. This behaviour is expected since the
amount of reinforcements is set to be under-reinforced. Hence, yielding of the tensile reinforcements
occur before concrete crushes. Yielding of the tensile reinforcement could be traced from the start of
curve-linerarity of the load-defletion and easily confirmed by the section analysis of the beam at the
corresponding load. The ductile behaviour of the beams after yielding of the tensile reinforcement
will be dictated by steel characteristic. It is supposed that all beams should have similar ductile
behaviour since the amount of reinforcement is the same. However, it should be remembered that the
beams have different elastic modulus due to the presence of patching material. Recalling the low
modular ratio and the patching dimension, the relative elastic modulus of the beam may be given by
the following order from the highest: control reinforced concrete (C), patched reinforced concrete
with first type of patching zone (P1) and finally patched reinforced concrete with second type of
patching zone (P2). It seems that a lower elastic modulus of the beam will give more ductile
behaviour. The ductile behaviour of the beam may be quantified in term of ductility factor which is

ratio of deflection at first yield to deflection at failure. Based on this quantification ratio, it is clear that
P2 beam has the highest ductility factor as shown in Fig. 5.

Fig. 5. Ductility factor of reinforced concrete beam

Cracking Pattern. Fig. 6-8 show cracking pattern of the reinforced concrete beam investigated in
this research. It is found that the cracking behaviour of each type of reinforced concrete beam can be
distinguished. For control reinforced concrete beam (C), small cracks are distributed evenly along the
area with maximum moment at low level of loading. When load is increased until failure, one of these
cracks propagates leading to fracture of the beam. For P1 type of beam, cracks occur outside the
patching zone. In fact, obvious cracks initiate at the vicinity of the patching zone as shown in Fig. 7.
The number of cracks is less than that of control beam. The density of cracking of the beam will affect
the stiffness of the element. The stiffness of the beam after cracking could be viewed in between
un-cracked and full-cracked section. A fewer cracking density provides more cross sections with
un-cracked area than that of beam with more cracking density. Hence, the stiffness of the beam with
less cracking density will be greater. The higher stiffness of the beam due to this cracking behaviour
could balance the effect of low modular ratio as mentioned in the previous section.

Fig. 6. Cracking pattern of control reinforced concrete beam (C)

Fig. 7. Cracking pattern of patched reinforced concrete beam (P1 patching zone)

Fig. 8. Cracking pattern of patched reinforced concrete beam (P2 patching zone)

For patched reinforced concrete beam with longer patching zone (P2), the cracks are initiated at the
edge of pure bending moment. According to fracture mechanic theory, the sudden change in loading
(bending moment) at this position could generate stress concentration which eventually initiates
crack. The cracking pattern also indicates that the cracking density of the P2 beam is less than that of
control beam (C). It is also confirmed from the observation that the development of cracks of the P2
beam appears at a lower rate compared to P1 since under similar load the number of cracks of P2
beam is less than that of P1. This behaviour could be related to low modular ratio of this beam. With
low modular ratio the patching material tends to experience lower stress distribution. Thus, a higher
load is required to cause cracking at the farthest tensile side of the beam.
Conclusions
This experimental investigation obtains the following conclusions:
a) Flexural behaviour of patched reinforced concrete with unsaturated polyester resin mortar
tends to be similar with the control concrete at a loading up to about peak load. However, after
this load the patched reinforced concrete beam with longer patching zone gives more ductile
behaviour.
b) The cracking density of the patched reinforced concrete with unsaturated polyester resin
mortar is less than the control concrete
Acknowledgements
This works were made possible due to financial support by DIPA PNBP UNS 2014 through Hibah
Unggulan Fakultas scheme.
References
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(2008), p. 145-153
[4] R. Sahamitmongkol, S. Suwathanangkul, P. Phoothong and Y. Kato: Journal Advanced Concrete
Technology Vol. 6 No.2 (2008), p. 317-336.
[5] D.C.Teychenne, R.E. Franklin and H.C. Erntroy: Design of normal concrete mixes. Second
Edition, Building Research Establishment Ltd, Garston, Watford, UK (1997)