Effect of fiber hybrid mode on the tension-tension fatigue performance for the pultruded carbon/glass fiber reinforced polymer composite rod

In order to promote the application of fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) rod in bridge engineering, the carbon/glass fiber uniformly dispersed hybrid (UDH) rod with a diameter of 22 mm was developed as the bridge cable through the pultrusion technology. In the present paper, the tension-tension fatigue performances of hybrid rod were investigated with three stress levels of 0.33, 0.44, 0.60 and the fixed stress ratio of 0.4. The fatigue life, stiffness degradation and stress redistribution during the fatigue loading were obtained by linear variable differential transformer (LVDT) and digital image correlation (DIC) method. Furthermore, the fatigue failure mechanism was revealed by microstructure damage analysis. Through the fiber uniformly hybrid technology, the fatigue failure mode of hybrid rod transferred from shell-core debonding to uniformly carbon and glass fiber/resin interface splitting. The positive hybrid effect of fatigue performance was realized to obtain higher fatigue life, stiffness retention and residual mechanical properties. The reliable fatigue life prediction model was developed, and the recommended fatigue limit of present hybrid rod applied for bridge cable was 0.45 at the stress ratio of 0.4 to obtain more than two million fatigue cycles.

Automated summary

In this study, a hybrid rod with carbon/glass fibers uniformly dispersed was developed for use as a bridge cable using the pultrusion technology. The tension-tension fatigue performances of the hybrid rod were investigated at different stress levels, and the fatigue failure mechanism was analyzed. The results showed that the hybrid rod exhibited improved fatigue life and stiffness retention through the fiber uniformly hybrid technology.