Flexural rehabilitation of steel beam with CFRP and BFRP fabrics – A comparative study

This paper compares the performance of structural steel beams retrofitted with two different fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) fabrics: Carbon FRP (CFRP) and Basalt FRP (BFRP) fabrics. A total of eight steel beams with and without corrosion defect in the flexural tension zone were tested under 4-point bending load. The study found that the use of both FRP fabrics resulted in reduced ductility, however, ductility of beams retrofitted with BFRP fabric is much higher than that of the beams retrofitted with CFRP fabric of similar thickness. The study also found that both FRPs fabrics are effective in increasing the ultimate load, yield load, and elastic stiffness of beams, however, number of BFRP fabric layers required is higher than the number of CFRP fabrics. The structural behavior of steel beams including the complex behavior of rupture in the FRP fabrics were successfully modeled using a commercially finite element software and a good correlation was obtained between the finite element models and the lab specimens. Validated finite element model was used to obtain additional information that could not be obtained from the experimental study. This study concludes that the Basalt fabric offers a competitive and green alternative to the Carbon fabric.

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Opracowanie rekordu ze środków MNiSW, umowa Nr 461252 w ramach programu "Społeczna odpowiedzialność nauki" - moduł: Popularyzacja nauki i promocja sportu (2020)