Behaviour of ultra high performance steel fibre concrete reinforced with polymer materials under compression and flexural loadings

Abstract

The experimental investigations conducted to study the behaviour of ultra-high performance steel fibre concrete (UHPSFC) reinforced with fibre reinforced polymer (FRP) material is presented in this paper. The investigations include the compressive behaviour of UHPSFC confined with FRP tubes and flexural behaviour of UHPSFC beams reinforced with internal FRP bars. 6 cylindrical specimens of UHPSFC confined with Carbon FRP (CFRP) and Basalt FRP (BFRP) tubes were tested under compression. Two full scale UHPSFC beams of 3250mm span reinforced with CFRP and Glass FRP (GFRP) bars were tested under four point bending. The compression behaviour of UHPSFC is significantly improved by the confinement provided by FRP material in terms of both strength and ductility. The compression strength of UHPSFC confined with FRP tubes is 1.35 times greater the unconfined UHPSFC cylinders. The ultimate failure strain of FRP confined UHPSFC cylinders is found to be 3 to 4.5 times greater than the unconfined ones. The beams reinforced with FRP bars found to have greater load capacity than the steel bar reinforced beams with same percentage of reinforcement. The experimental results reflect the potential of FRP composites to build hybrid structural members with UHPSFC material.