Experimental and FE Analytical Study on Flexural Load-Bearing Mechanism of Hybrid Basalt FRTP-Steel-RC Beams
摘要
Basalt Fiber Reinforced Polymer (BFRP) bars are recently drawing great attention due to their low density, high tensile strength and non-corrosive properties. However, their low elastic modulus could negatively affect the load bearing mechanism of BFRP Reinforced Concrete (RC) structure. To compensate the negative effect, some previous research has proposed a hybrid-RC concept with both steel and BFRP bars in the same cross-section. However, the relevant research on such hybrid FRP-steel RC, especially on the load bearing mechanism is still scarce. This research aims to reveal the load-bearing mechanism of hybrid-RC member through experiment and numerical analysis, especially focusing on the stress distribution of reinforcements. Four-point flexural loading tests were conducted on steel-RC, BFRP-RC, and hybrid-RC beams. The stiffness of hybrid-RC beam after cracking was larger than that of the BFRP-RC beam. In addition, the behavior of observed stress along the axial direction of reinforcements varied between steel and BFRP bars depending on the applied load level. Three-dimensional finite element (FE) analysis was performed with six directional fixed crack model, and could reproduce the trend of the experimental results. Through the loading tests and FE analysis, the role of elasto-plastic steel and high strength elastic FRP in hybrid-RC, which is important for optimizing the designs, was revealed.