EXPERIMENTAL STUDY ON FLEXURAL BEHAVIOR OF EXISTING STONE SLABS STRENGTHENED BY CFRP PLATE

To improve the bending performance of existing stone slabs and prevent brittle fractures, this study proposes the use of CFRP plate reinforcement technology for bending enhancement. Bending tests were conducted on both unreinforced stone slabs and CFRP-reinforced stone slabs, comparing the effects of different CFRP plate thicknesses and widths on their bending performance. The results show that reinforcing stone slabs with CFRP plates significantly improves their final failure mode, transforming the brittle fracture of unreinforced slabs into bending failure with deformation capacity in CFRP-reinforced slabs. The CFRP plates substantially enhance the bending load-bearing capacity of the stone slabs, increasing the ultimate load by 60.15% to 128.59% compared to unreinforced slabs, with reinforcement effectiveness improving as the thickness and width of the CFRP plates increase. Moreover, CFRP plates effectively inhibit the formation of cracks at the bottom of the slabs, raising the ultimate tensile strain of the stone material and increasing the cracking load. The ultimate tensile strain of the stone in the tensile zone improves by 66.92% to 187.48% as the thickness and width of the CFRP plates increase, while the cracking load of CFRP-reinforced slabs rises by 13.33% to 54.07% compared to unreinforced slabs. A theoretical calculation formula for the bending load-bearing capacity of CFRP-reinforced stone slabs was established, with the theoretical results showing good agreement with the experimental data.