College of Engineering, University Al-Qadisiyah discussed a master dissertation on the behavior of sustainable self-compacting reinforced concrete shoulders reinforced with glass fiber reinforced polymer bars installed near the concrete surface by the postgraduate student, Mrs. Nawras Hassan Ghali.

The dissertation aimed at presenting a comprehensive experimental study to understand the behavior of reinforced concrete shoulders with recycled aggregate (RA) that were strengthened by installation near the surface with different configurations of steel bars or glass fiber reinforced polymer (GFRP) bars using two ratios from shear arm to effective depth.

The dissertation included the approval of nineteen samples of self-compacting reinforced concrete shoulders with dimensions of (200 x 250 x 360) mm (width x height x length), the shoulder samples were divided into five groups according to the type of aggregate used in the concrete mixtures, and the type of material used in the NSM technology, as well as the ratio of the shear arm to the effective depth (a/d), each group contains four samples, one of which is without reinforcement and is considered a reference sample, while the other three samples were strengthened via using the NSM method using steel bars or GFRP bars, inclined, horizontal and vertical.

The dissertation highlighted comparing the load-displacement curves and crack patterns obtained through the DIC technique with those obtained from experimental tests showed a reasonable relationship between the two results.