Glass fibre reinforced polyesters (GFRP) composite profiles represent a viable alternative to structural members made of conventional structural materials such as steel, aluminium, or wood. When used for structural applications, the GFRP beams have the advantages of high strength/low weight ratio, while corrosion resistance, thermal and electrical insulation properties represent other desired qualities of these elements. Usually, GFRP are mainly reinforced with unidirectional glass fibres but these profiles integrate more fibre architectural products such as veils, mats or fabrics aiming to resist the mechanical and thermal stresses along non-principal directions. Polymeric matrices such as epoxy or vinyl ester resins can be successfully utilized for continues phases of the composite materials for pultruded shapes. In this paper, the authors present an experimental and numerical analysis to obtain the structural response as well as the flexural stiffness and the shear stiffness relating to GFRP “I” pultruded beams subjected to bending using the three points loading test procedure. The experimental results are compared with the analytical calculations and the numerical modelling using structural response curves and stress-strain maps.
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