Developing a hybrid FRP-concrete composite beam

Abstract

Current materials engineering trends put forward the development of efficient structural solutions. The steel replacement with fiber-reinforced polymers (FRP) exemplifies the key to the corrosion problem. However, the relatively low deformation modulus of typical FRP materials raises the deformations of the structural components. Together with the self-weight reduction increasing the kinematic displacements, the latter issue makes developing hybrid structures comprising compression-resistant concrete and high-performance in tension FRP profiles important. Although such hybrid systems are applicable for bridge engineering, the uncertainty of the inter-component bonding properties complicates developing these innovative structures, including the design models. The typical solution focuses on the local bond improvement, e.g., employing FRP profile perforation and mechanical anchorage systems. However, this study introduces an alternative solution, using the stress-ribbon bridge structural system for creating the hybrid beam prototype, which combines the synthetic fiber-reinforced concrete slab and pultruded FRP profile fixed on the supports. This work exemplifies the structural development concept when the finite element (FE) modeling outcome defines the target reference of the design procedure. Thus, on the one hand, this innovative structure simplifies the corresponding numerical (FE) model, which assumes the perfect bond between the components of the hybrid beam system. On the other hand, the solution to the support problem (resulting from a low resistance of pultruded FRP profiles to transverse loads) improves the structural performance of the bridge prototype, doubling the structure’s flexural stiffness and load-bearing capacity regarding the weak concrete supports’ system. The bending tests proved the adequacy of this solution in describing the design reference for further development of the proposed structural concept.

Material-oriented engineering for eco-optimized structures—a new design approach

“…1 cover a variety of tests. This article summarizes the essential experimental outcomes and achieved findings, providing the reader with the minimal information necessary to follow the investigation flow and investigation trends-an expert finds all the research details in the references [19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27].…”

“…Jakubovskis et al [28] discussed the illustrative example, representing the cracking behavior of ordinary concrete. Thus, the identified improvement in the mechanical resistance of composite systems, comprising fiber-reinforced cementitious and polymeric materials, e.g., considered in the studies [19,22,26], improves the design reliability. However, the filament content does not describe the reinforcement efficiency [21,29,30].…”

“…4. The adaptive design approach (adapted from [26]): measurement units = mm; LVDT = linear variable displacement transducer.…”

“…The above-identified gaps motivated this study, and the "Industrialised material-oriented engineering for ecooptimized structures" research project supported by the European Regional Development Fund inspired this article's emergence, which adapts the Award Lecture at the European Advanced Material Congress 2022 in Genoa. It summarizes the project results published in the literature [19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26]. The proposed design approach describes the ecooptimization criteria in a simplified and heuristic manner as reduction of the materials' amount, carbon emission, energy footprint, and life cycle costs, satisfying the required performance of the structural components.…”

“…The research flow encompasses five main activities depicted in Fig. 1: 1) experimental characterization of composite materials and structures [20][21][22]; 2) materials engineering [20,21,25]; 3) tailoring structural components' material properties and production technology for construction purposes [19]; 4) the design methodology development employing the collected database and metaheuristic optimization algorithms [26]; 5) adaptive prototyping for user requirements [23,24]. The division into activities is formal-all tasks are interlinked (Fig.…”