TENSILE RESPONSE OF GFRP-REINFORCED HIGH STRENGTH CONCRETE PANELS

摘要

Excessive cracking is one of the most common causes of damage in concrete structures. With the recent growing interest in the utilization of glass fiber reinforced polymer (GFRP) bars for reinforcing concrete, still little information is available about cracking. In this study, the tensile response and cracking characteristics of GFRP-reinforced concrete (GFRP-RC) panels subjected to direct tension is experimentally investigated. The focus of this paper is to investigate the mechanical strength of concrete and the loading type as main test parameters. The levels of concrete strength taken were 40 MPa and 80 MPa for normal- and high-strength concrete respectively. The GFRP-RC panels were reinforced orthogonally with two layers of GFRP bars and subjected to uniaxial and biaxial direct tensile stresses. The results of experiments include the stress-strain relationships, and the cracking characteristics (crack width and crack spacing). The preliminary analyses of the results revealed that there is a general rise in mechanical performances of the tested panels with the utilization of high-strength concrete. This allowed an improvement in the cracking loads and strains, and the cracking characteristics of the panels. This improvemed behaviour could reflect positively on the margin of safety and allows for more tolerance for serviceability requirements that usually control the GFRP-RC design.