This paper describes results of experimental and numerical investigations about the structural behaviour of composite beams made of annealed glass panes and GFRP pultruded profiles. A brief description of flexural tests previously carried out on glass and glass-GFRP composite beams is first presented. The second part of this paper describes the numerical simulation of a rectangular glass-GFRP composite beam. Two-dimensional finite element (FE) models of the composite beam were developed in order to simulate and analyse their serviceability behaviour (prior to glass breakage) as well as their post-cracking behaviour until the failure. To this end, a multi-fixed smeared crack model was used, and the effects of the following parameters were evaluated: (i) fracture energy of glass and (ii) shear retention factor. Experimental and numerical results are compared regarding the cracking load and post-cracking behaviour, namely in terms of crack pattern and load-deflection response.
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