Reinforcement and repair of small sawn Pinus Sylvestris beams with carbon fiber

Abstract This paper explores the behavior of wooden beams tested to bending up to fracture, and later repaired with bidirectional carbon fiber fabric of two grammage types, placed in one or two layers. In addition, beams reinforced with the same fabrics were tested to flexural strength until fracture in order to compare the results. For this purpose, 21 beams were tested to bending at 3 and 4 points; 13 of these beams did not have any reinforcement, 8 of them were repaired with carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) and later tested, and the other 8 beams were reinforced but were not submitted to any previous test. Results show that when the appropriate fabric strength, the repaired beams –previously collapsed– support higher loads than those that initially caused them to fracture.