Cyclic behaviour of GFRP-RC precast column-cap beam frame assembly: A finite element investigation
Date
2025
Authors
El-Naqeeb, M.H.
Hassanli, R.
Zhuge, Y.
Ma, X.
Bazli, M.
Manalo, A.
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Journal article
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Engineering structures, 2025; 328(119732)
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Abstract
The applications of glass fibre reinforced polymers (GFRPs) in reinforced concrete frames made up of precast elements have remained limited because of a limited understanding of their behaviour and the substantial challenges associated with testing large-scale structures. To bridge this knowledge gap, a detailed finite element model was developed and verified against a large-scale precast GFRP-RC frame assembled previously using epoxy resin and tested under cyclic loads. This was followed by a comprehensive parametric study to understand the effect of different parameters such as the material of connecting reinforcement, and section failure control (Tension/Compression) on the cyclic performance of GFRP-RC frames assembled out of individual precast GFRP-RC elements.
Comparisons have also been made with respect to the steel-RC counterpart frames. It was found that the mechanical properties of the material of connecting reinforcement (dowels) with the same amount of reinforcement, determine the cyclic behaviour of precast GFRP-RC frames in terms of capacity, stiffness, energy dissipation, and residual damage. The use of mild stainless-steel dowels improved the energy dissipation capacity of the frame while high-strength stainless steel, GFRP and CFRP dowels contributed to minimum residual deformations. Therefore, the selection of connection reinforcement material relies on whether energy dissipation or minimum damage is prioritized. Compared with precast steel-RC frames with the same reinforcement ratio, the GFRP-RC frames exhibited better residual damage performance while exhibiting lower stiffness and energy dissipation.
Among different connection details, the frame with epoxy-filled ducts located at the cap beam achieved the greatest lateral capacity. However, this was accompanied by a sudden failure resulting from tension control failure, which changed to a gradual concrete compression failure with increasing reinforcement amount. This study concluded that precast GFRP-RC frames controlled by concrete compression failure and assembled through epoxy-filled ducts located at the cap beam can achieve a comparable performance to the counterpart precast steel-RC frames in terms of initial stiffness and energy dissipation. Also, it can achieve a similar performance to the equivalent cast-in-place counterpart.
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Copyright 2025 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)