Assessment and Optimisation of CFRP Reinforced Glulam Beams - A Feasibility Study in Design Stage Reinforcement Configurations for Pedestrian Bridge Applications
A research study was undertaken to investigate the mechanical performance of glulam beams reinforced by CFRP or bamboo. Local reinforcement is proposed in order to improve the flexural strength of glulam beams. The glulam beam is strengthened in tension and along its sides with the carbon fiber-reinforced polymer CFRP or bamboo. A series of CFRP reinforced glulam beams and bamboo reinforced glulam beams were tested to determine their load-deformation characteristics. Experimental work for evaluating the reinforcing technique is reported here. According to experiment results, the CFRP and bamboo reinforcements led to a higher glulam beam performance. By using CFRP and bamboo reinforcements several improvements in strength may be obtained.
With the aim of evaluating the bond behaviour between glulam and carbon fibre reinforced
polymer laminates strips, an experimental program using pull-out tests was carried, when the near-surface strengthening technique is applied. Two main variables were studied: the bond length and the type of pull-out test configuration. The instrumentation included the loaded and free-end slips, as well as the pullout force. Based on the obtained experimental results, and applying an analytical-numerical strategy, the local bond stress-slip relationship was determined. In this work the tests are described, the obtained results are presented and analysed, and the applicability of an inverse analysis to obtain the local bond law is demonstrated.
IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering
Summary
The timber bridge design although economical, often has difficulty producing enough rigidity so that a solution is needed to solve it. The use of CFRP (Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer) as a reinforcement of structural elements if properly designed and implemented can produce an effective and efficient composite structure. The experimental study aims to analyse the strength, stiffness and ductility of flexural strengthening composite bridge glued laminated timber beams-concrete plates using CFRP layers. The dimensions of the composite glued laminated timber beams 100/180 mm and concrete plate 75/300 mm with a length of 2,480 mm. The number of specimens is 3 composite glued laminated timber beams-concrete plate consisting of 1 test beam without CFRP reinforcement, 1 test beam with one layer CFRP reinforcement, and 1 test beam with three layer CFRP reinforcement. Experimental testing of flexural loads is done with two load points where each load is placed at 1/3 span length. The test results show that the strength of composite laminated timber beams glued - concrete plates BN; BL-1; BL-2 in a row 81.32; 82.82; 82.69 kN/mm; stiffness in a row 7.51; 8.22; 6.32 kN/mm and successive ductility of 16.67; 28.83; 20.21.
This paper deals with laminated timber-concrete (LTC) composite beam members, for applications in sustainable building structures, in which the interlayer connection is achieved with adhesives, similarly to the glued laminated timber beams, instead of the classically used shear connectors (e.g. mechanical connectors or notches). Only a small number of studies of this type of high-performance members are available. The strength and stiffness of the LTC under short-term static ramp-loading were studied on new and retrofit (joist-type) floor members, through laboratory tests and non-linear finite element modelling. In the initial tests the typical failure mode observed was the failure of the wood in tension. Consequently, a carbon fibre reinforced polymer (CFRP) layer was added to the tension side of the timber layer, forming a multi-composite member. The research results indicate that the structural performance in terms of efficiencies and strength for the LTC beams exceeds the corresponding performance of similar classical timber-concrete beams with shear connectors due to the different shear transfer and failure modes. By adding the CFRP reinforcement to the tension fibres of the timber layer, the failure mode changed again, allowing for further increase in strength and stiffness.
Timber beams can effectively be reinforced using externally bonded fibre reinforced polymer (FRP) composites. This paper describes a nonlinear 3-dimensional finite element model which was developed in order to accurately simulate the bending behaviour of unreinforced and carbon FRP plate reinforced glulam beams. The model incorporates suitable constitutive relationship for each material and utilises anisotropic plasticity theory for timber in compression. Failure of beams was modelled based on the maximum stress criterion. The results of the finite element analysis showed a good agreement with experimental findings for load-deflection behaviour, stiffness, ultimate load carrying capacity and strain profile distribution of unreinforced and reinforced beams. The proposed model can be used to examine the effect of different geometries or materials on the mechanical performance of reinforced system.
This paper describes an experimental test program and theoretical analysis which examines the reinforcing in flexure of glued laminated timber (glulam) beams using bonded-in carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) bars. A series of four-point bending tests were conducted till failure on unreinforced, passively reinforced and prestressed Douglas fir glulam beams in a simply-supported scheme. The focus of this research was to evaluate the reinforcing efficiency of both passively reinforced and prestressed beams. Test results showed that the flexural capacity of the reinforced, prestressed, prestressed & reinforced (bottom prestressed and top reinforced) beams greatly increased by 64.8%, 93.3% and 131%, respectively. While the maximum improvement of the bending stiffness reached 42.0%. Another important finding was that the extreme fiber tensile strain of timber beams at failure could be remarkably increased due to the presence of the tension reinforcement, which indicated it overcomes the effects of local defects and therefore the failure mode was changed from brittle tension failure to ductile compression failure. Based on the experimental results, a theoretical model was proposed to predict the flexural capacity of unreinforced, reinforced and prestressed timber beams, which was validated by the test data.
