Behaviour of continuous concrete beams reinforced with hybrid GFRP/steel bars

Abstract

An investigation on the application of hybrid glass fibre reinforced polymer (GFRP) and steel bars bars as longitudinal reinforcement for simple and continuous concrete beams is presented. Three simply and eleven multi-spans continuous reinforced concrete beams were constructed and tested to failure. Nine continuous and two simply supported beams were reinforced with a hybrid combination of both GFRP and steel re-bars at mid spans and internal support regions. In addition, two continuous concrete beams reinforced with either GFRP or steel bars and one simply supported beam reinforced with GFRP bars were tested as control beams. The beams were classified into two groups according to the reinforcement configurations. All specimens tested were 200 mm in width and 300 mm in depth. The continuous beams comprised of two equal spans, each of 2600 mm, while the simply supported beams had a span of 2600 mm. Unlike GFRP reinforced concrete beams, the hybrid and steel reinforced concrete beams failed in a favourable ductile manner and demonstrated narrow cracks and smaller deflections compared to the GFRP-reinforced control beam. The lower stiffness and higher deflection of GFRP reinforced concrete beams can be controlled and improved by the use of steel reinforcement in combination with GFRP re-bars. However, the ratio of GFRP to steel reinforcement is a key factor to ensure sufficient ductility and stiffness beyond the first cracking stage. The experimental results showed that the extent of moment redistribution in hybrid reinforced continuous beams depends mainly on the amount of hybrid reinforcement ratio in critical sections. Similar area of steel and GFRP bars in critical sections leads to limited moment redistribution whereas different amount of steel and FRP bars in critical sections leads to a remarkable moment redistribution. Design guidelines and formulas have been validated against experimental results of hybrid GFRP/steel reinforced concrete beams tested. The Yoon’s equation reasonably predicted the deflections of the hybrid beams tested whereas Qu’s model which is based on ACI 440.1R-15 underestimated the deflections of hybrid beams tested at all stage of loading after cracking. The ACI 440.2R-08 and Pang et al., (2015) equations reasonably predicted the sagging failure moment in most continuous hybrid reinforced concrete beams, whereas they underestimated the hogging flexural strength at failure of most hybrid continuous beams. On the other hand, the formulas proposed by Yinghao et al., (2013) was very conservative in predicting the failure moment at the critical sagging and hogging sections. On the analytical side, a numerical technique consisting of sectional analyses has been developed to predict the moment–curvature relationship and moment capacity of hybrid FRP/ steel reinforced concrete members. The numerical technique has been validated against the experimental test results obtained from the current research and those reported in the literature. In addition, a two-dimensional nonlinear finite element model was proposed using ABAQUS package. The proposed model was validated against the experimental results of the beams tested in the present research.