Prestressed concrete beams with corrugated FRP webs.

摘要

The currently increasing trend in popularity of utilizing FRP composites in bridge design and construction has been driven by the corrosion resistance and high strength to weight ratio of the material. The main objective of this study was to experimentally evaluate the applicability of using corrugated FRP panels as webs in prestressed concrete beams. The shear and flexural behavior of three large-scale beams with three distinct FRP webs and variable geometry were considered in order to cover a large spectrum of possibilities.; The design of a capable shear connection for these members was completed along with experimental validation of the methodology. The shear connectors provided demonstrated significant ductility to ensure that the ultimate failure occurred via shear strength of the FRP material for all laminates. The practical applications involved in the fabrication of this hybrid structure were also investigated and resulted in a successful construction method. The application of isotropic buckling equations was shown to be adequate with respect to the corrugated FRP web utilized in Beam One. The flexural behavior of the section was accurately predicted by considering that the flanges act compositely in response to bending and prestressing forces. The measured FRP stresses were much lower than the corresponding values in the associated flanges, which indicated that, the interaction between bending and shear was relatively low for all FRP webs. Overall, the corrugated FRP webs provided an acceptable web component that, with careful design and detailing according to the lessons learned from the experimental results, was capable of providing a strong shear connection and easy to apply analysis techniques for bending and shear.