Comparison of Flexural Performance by FEM Evaluation of Reinforced Concrete Beam Strengthened by Natural-Synthetic Hybrid FRP

Synthetic fiber-reinforced polymers have been widely used in the construction industry for retrofitting purposes. However, due to their high carbon emissions in the manufacturing process, a need for investigating the efficacy of natural fiber-reinforced polymers in strengthening concrete structural elements is needed. In this paper, the ANSYS material designer module is utilized to evaluate composite material properties from the mechanical properties of fibers and matrix components. Using the obtained composite parameters from this module, an experimental test from the literature was simulated, and the results were validated. For a constant fiber volume fraction, similar composite models are evaluated using experimental data from tensile testing of natural fibers (sisal, hemp, kenaf) and synthetic fibers (carbon, glass). The numerical modeling of stack up is done in ABAQUS software with the intention to replace 50% synthetic fibers with natural fibers. A reference beam with no strengthening and 11 additional beams with a combination of natural and synthetic fibers are modeled and compared.