Structural Behavior of Reinforced Concrete Spliced Beams Subjected to Repeated Loads: An Experimental Study

Girders with large spans are made of prefabricated elements which are produced off-site and transported to the construction site. The adjacent precast or prefabricated components are linked together with joints using different techniques. Splicing of beams is one of the effective used methods. Usually, these girders are subjected to repeated loads. This paper presents an experimental study to investigate the performance of spliced beams strengthened using steel fiber concrete (SFC) at the splice region or near-surface mounted carbon fiber-reinforced polymer NSM-CFRP bars under repeated loads. Four simply supported beams with dimensions 150 mm × 250 mm × 2200 mm spliced at midspan using joints of 320 mm in length were fabricated and then tested using four-point loading configuration. The investigated variables are existence of spliced joints, using of SFC of 1% volume fraction at the splice region, using NSM-CFRP bars to strengthen the spliced beams, and the effect of repeated load (ten successive cycles). Based on the results, using of SFC of 1% volume fraction at joint regions increased load-carrying capacity by 59.3% with a rather ductile failure. In addition, strengthening the spliced beams using NSM-CFRP bars improved the loading capacity by 36–116.7%. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2025.