Title: Flexural Behavior of Fiber-Reinforced-Concrete Beams Reinforced with FRP Rebars

Author(s): H. Wang and A. Belarbi

Publication: Symposium Paper

Volume: 230

Issue:

Appears on pages(s): 895-914

Keywords: concrete bridge decks; crack width; ductility; fiber-reinforced concrete; fiber-reinforced polymers; flexure; polypropylene fiber

DOI: 10.14359/14872

Date: 10/1/2005

Abstract:
The main objective of this study was to develop a nonferrous hybridreinforcement system for concrete bridge decks by using continuous fiber-reinforced-polymer (FRP) rebars and discrete randomly distributed polypropylene fibers. Thishybrid system has the potential to eliminate problems related to corrosion of steelreinforcement while providing requisite strength, stiffness, and desired ductility, whichare shortcomings of the FRP reinforcement system in reinforced concrete structures.The overall study plan includes (1) development of design procedures for an FRP/FRChybrid reinforced bridge deck system; (2) laboratory studies of static and fatigue bondperformances and ductility characteristics of the system; (3) accelerated durability testsof the hybrid system; and (4) static and fatigue tests on full-scale hybrid reinforcedcomposite bridge decks. This paper presents the results relating to the flexuralbehavior of the polypropylene-fiber-reinforced-concrete beams reinforced with FRPrebars.Test results indicated that with the addition of fibers, the flexural behavior wasimproved with an increase of ductility index by approximately 40% as compared to theplain concrete beams. Crack widths of FRP/FRC were found to be smaller than those ofFRP/plain concrete system and the values predicted by the current ACI 440 equations.Furthermore, the compressive failure strains of concrete in FRP/FRC beams exceed thestrain of 0.0040 mm/mm.