Effect of Insufficient Tension Lap Splices on the Deformability and Crack Resistance of Reinforced Concrete Beams: A Comparative Study Techniques and Experimental Study

In civil engineering, strengthening of reinforced concrete structural components is a challenging issue. This issue arises periodically across the world for a variety of causes, including incorrect design or construction, rehabilitation or strengthening for increasing service loads, and others. Additionally, preventing bond failure in the lap-splice zone also requires a sufficient bond between the concrete and reinforcement along the lap-splice length. Sometimes, the lap splice in the tension side has insufficient length for various reasons, such as design and construction errors. This paper described the various materials and techniques that have been exploited for the rehabilitation/strengthening of existing RC structures with tension lap splices, including concrete or steel jacketing technique, fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP), external pre-stressing, near-surface mounted and fiber-reinforced composited materials. Moreover, the review aims to synthesize the data from papers and case studies around the world. This could serve as a useful reference for future studies and other researchers. A descriptive statistical analysis was performed on the collected data. Additionally, an experimental program involving five RC beams with tension lap splices of varying lengths (ranging from 10 to 60 times the rebar diameter) is conducted to investigate the effect of the lap splice length on the bending behavior of the beams. The results indicate that insufficient lap splice lengths adversely affect the behavior and failure mechanisms of the beams, leading to reduced ductility, flexural toughness, and bond strength. On the other hand, specimens with sufficient lap splice lengths exhibit improved deformability and crack resistance.