Experimental Research on Tensile Fatigue Performance of Surface Cracked Steel Plates Reinforced with CFRP

There are many minor cracks hidden in steel members, they may be easily to cause fatigue damage. Such cracks include two kinds: One is through-thickness cracks and another is surface crack. In most situations, the surface crack propagation in a steel plate can be divided in two stages. However, there are few researches on the CFRP reinforcement of the steel plate with surface cracks. A series of tests were carried out on carbon fibre reinforced plastics (CFRP) reinforced steel plates with surface cracks. Then some factors affecting the fatigue life and crack propagation were studied. These factors included the dimensions of surface cracks and the CFRP reinforcement. The research results show that the increase of the crack depth will significantly reduce the fatigue life. Furthermore, the CFRP reinforcement can improve the fatigue life and slow down the crack propagation to a certain extent. Therefore, the CFRP reinforcement can improve the fatigue performance of the steel plate with surface cracks.