Performance of glass fiber reinforced plastic bars as a reinforcing material for concrete structures

The increasing use of fiber reinforced plastic (FRP) bars to reinforce concrete structures necessitates the need for either developing a new design code or adopt the current one to account for the engineering characteristics of FRP materials. This paper suggests some modifications to the currently used ACI model for computing flexural strength, service load deflection, and the minimum reinforcement needed to avoid rupturing of the tensile reinforcement. Two series of tests were conducted to check the validity of the suggested modifications. The first series was used to check the validity of the modifications made into the flexural and service load deflection models. The test results of the first series were also analyzed to develop two simple models for computing the service load deflection for beams reinforced with glass FRP (GFRP) bars. The second series was used to check the accuracy of the modification suggested into minimum reinforcement model. Test results of the first series indicate that the flexural capacity of the beams reinforced by GFRP bars can be accurately predicted using the ultimate design theory. They also show that the current ACI model for computing the service load deflection underestimates the actual deflection of these beams. The two suggested models for predicting service load deflection accurately estimated the measured deflection under service load, and the simpler of the two pertains better predictions than those of the models available in the literature. Test results of the second series reveal that there is an excellent agreement between the predicted and recorded behavior of the test specimens, which suggests the validity of the proposed model for calculating the required minimum reinforcement for beams reinforced by GFRP bars. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.