Abstract: In the construction of contemporary buildings, it's essential to incorporate numerous pipes and ducts to facilitate vital services like water supply, sewage, air-conditioning, electricity, telecommunications, and computer networking. Typically, these conduits are positioned beneath the beam's underside. The dimensions of these pipes or ducts can vary, ranging from a few centimetres to up to half a meter. The introduction of such openings inevitably results in reduced structural stiffness, increased cracking, excessive deflection, and diminished beam strength.

To address these challenges, the use of Carbon Fibre Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) sheets for retrofitting concrete structures has emerged as an economically viable and technologically advanced alternative to traditional methods. This approach offers several advantages, including impressive strength-to-weight ratio, resistance to corrosion, excellent fatigue resistance, straightforward and efficient installation, and minimal disruption to the existing structural layout.

The focus of this research paper is to examine the behaviour of a Reinforced Concrete (RCC) beam featuring a Rounded Rectangular opening located within the shear zone. The study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of three distinct CFRP reinforcement techniques. The analysis is performed using ANSYS software. The study involves five beams: one acting as a control beam without an opening in the shear zone, with opening in shear zone the other three strengthened using different CFRP techniques—applying CFRP inside the opening, around the opening, and both inside and around the opening. The results include deflection values corresponding to varying load levels, allowing for comparison among different loading scenarios. Furthermore, the study analyses the crack patterns associated with the various CFRP techniques employed.

Ultimately, among the approaches investigated, it becomes evident that the technique involving CFRP reinforcement both around and inside the opening proves to be the most effective. This method substantially enhances the beam's load-carrying capacity, surpassing that of the control beam by approximately threefold.

Keywords: Reinforced Concrete Beam, strengthening of beam, finite element analysis, application of ANSYS software, graphical representation of load versus deflection relationships, CFRP, Rounded rectangular Opening,

| DOI: 10.17148/IARJSET.2023.10823