Title:
Flexural Behavior of Ultra-High-Performance Seawater Sea-Sand Concrete Beams Reinforced with Fiber-Reinforced Polymers Bars (Prepublished)
Author(s):
Fen Zhou, Lijuan Li, Yunxing Du, Fei Peng, Deju Zhu
Publication:
Structural Journal
Volume:
Issue:
Appears on pages(s):
Keywords:
fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP); flexural behavior; ultra-high-performance seawater sea-sand concrete (UHPSSC)
DOI:
10.14359/51749490
Date:
1/19/2026
Abstract:
To promote the application of fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) bars reinforced ultra-high-performance seawater sea-sand concrete (FRP-UHPSSC) structures in marine construction, four-point static bending tests were carried out on 16 FRP-UHPSSC beams with different reinforcement ratios, height of cross-section, and type of FRP bars to investigate the ultimate load-carrying capacity, the midspan deflection, and the failure modes of the beams. The experimental results show that all the test beams are brittle failures, and the failure mode of the beams is shear failure when the ratio of the actual reinforcement ratio to the balanced one is higher than 2.73. Increasing the reinforcement ratio and the beam section height both improve the bending moment at ultimate load and the flexural stiffness at the service limit state. The Steel-FRP composite bars (SFCB) reinforced UHPSSC beams have the maximal bending moment at ultimate load, and the basalt fiber reinforced polymer (BFRP) bar reinforced UHPSSC beams have the optimal ductility. The deviation of ultimate bending moment and midspan deflection obtained by the proposed calculation method is reduced from 7.5 to 2.8%, and from 15 to 3%, respectively, compared with current specifications for FRP-reinforced concrete structures.