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Abstract The thesis presents an experimental investigation of the flexural strengthening of preloaded reinforced concrete continuous beams. Two types of strengthening were used; strengthening with RC layers and strengthening with CFRP sheets. Parameters which were studied were the preloading level and the type of strengthening. The results demonstrated that decreasing the preloading level in case of strengthening with RC layers has an essential role in increasing the flexural load-carrying capacity and the deflection of RC continuous beams, while in case of strengthening with CFRP sheets it doesn{u2019}t influence the flexural load-carrying capacity and the deflection of RC continuous beams. In addition, strengthening by extremely cheap and traditional materials like RC layers resulted in an increase in the load-carrying capacity plus high deflections conservation. While strengthening with CFRP was not an effective strengthening technique due to its high cost, low deflections and the sudden failure resulted |