CONCRETE CULVERTS AND BURIED STRUCTURES REINFORCED WITH FRP

摘要

The durability of reinforced concrete buried structure can be improved by replacing the reinforcing steel rods by fibre reinforced plastic (FRP) rods or grids. In addition, the use of FRP considerably increases the ratio of strength to rigidity. This leads to improved performance of the reinforced concrete buried structure due to the enhanced soil-structure interaction. Numerical examples show the effect of the reduced rigidity to lead to a reduction in the order of 46% in the maximum bending and shear forces.rnThe design procedure of FRP reinforced concrete culverts follows in general the basics of steel reinforced culvert. However, few modifications have to be introduced in the calculation of the effective wall rigidity, shear load carrying capacity as well as in deleting the requirements for crack control.