Rehabilitation of reinforced concrete structures using FRP and wood

•RC structures are currently reinforced using fiber-reinforced-polymer (FRP) composites.•The replacement of FRP by a wood element is proposed herein.•RC beams were reinforced by current composites and the proposed solution.•Results underline the possibility of applying natural materials in rehabilitation of RC structures. The combination of concrete and wood is well known in the rehabilitation of wood structures. In this paper, this association is used for reinforced concrete (RC) strengthening. Experiments were conducted to analyze the bending behavior of several combinations of wood-concrete composite beams with and without fiber-reinforced-polymer (FRP) bars. The results exhibit a significant effect of the reinforcement, essentially provided by the wood material. The presence of FRP bars seems to increase the stiffness of the reinforced beams without influencing the ultimate load as compared to a reinforcement using only wood. However, the thickness of the wood element can modify the failure mode (failure under a tension or shear force) and the value of the ultimate load. This work underlines the possibility of using wood in the field of RC structure rehabilitation.