Strengthening of Reinforced Concrete Deep Beams with Large Openings Using Metal Plates

Deep beams with large openings require innovative approaches to maintain strength and performance. To minimize the detrimental impacts of wide holes in reinforced concrete deep beams, effective reinforcing pro-cedures are essential. This paper presents a study on the use of metal plates for strengthening reinforced concrete deep beams with large openings. The Finite element modelling (FEM) software Abaqus is used to study the im-pact of various metal plate orientations on the structural behaviour and load-carrying capacity of the deep beams. The research includes an extensive sensitivity analysis and model calibration of the original model against exper-imental results, as well as four different examples of applying a load of 500 kN after validating the original beam against experimental results. The study found that case 3 exhibits the smallest deflection and have large load carrying capacity, indicating its superior performance in minimizing deflection. However, case 4 is a more affordable choice due to the high cost of the metal plates used in case 3's design. Different grades of concrete were utilized on the same model after case 4 was chosen as the final one to examine the impact of concrete strength and deter-mine which was most cost-effective. Based on cost-effectiveness and performance, the proposed model has the ability to carry more load with less deflection, encouraging the development of practical and secure structural so-lutions