Ductility of concrete beams reinforced with FRP bars and steel fibers

摘要

A total of 18 concrete beams were tested to study the influence of adding steel fibers (SF) to concrete mix on the ductility of concrete beams reinforced with fiber reinforced plastics bars (FRP beams). The main variables in the study were thetype and volume fraction of the steel fiber. The study also investigated the accuracy of an available model, developed originally to predict the flexural strength of concrete beams reinforced with SF and steel bars (SF-steel beams), after modification inestimating the flexural capacity of the fibrous FRP beams (SF-FRP beams).The results indicate that the ductility of FRP beams is less than 50% of that of the respective steel beams. The results also reveal that the ductility of SF-FRP beams is directly related to the fiber content. In addition, the test results show thatinclusion of 1% of hooked SF can improve the ductility of FRP beams to be the same as that of the steel beams. Furthermore, comparison between the predicted and measured flexural capacity of SF-FRP beams shows that the modified model can predict themeasured results within a reasonable accuracy.