Study on thermal effects on fatigue behavior of cracked steel plates strengthened by CFRP sheets

Carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) sheets have been used to strengthen steel structures to enhance fatigue life. However there is very limited information on the influence of temperatures on the fatigue strengthening efficiency. This paper describes an investigation on the behavior of cracked steel plates strengthened with CFRP at different temperatures. Firstly, through cylinder coupon tests, mechanical properties of the resin were found to vary at different temperatures, especially when the temperature exceeds the glass transition temperature Tg. Secondly, three cracked bare steel plates and five cracked steel plates strengthened with high modulus CFRP sheets were tested under fatigue loading at different temperatures. The results prove the effectiveness of CFRP strengthening technology to increase fatigue life when the temperature ranges from −40 °C up to 60 °C. It is concluded that the variation of temperature has an obvious influence on properties of the resin, leading to influence on fatigue life. Finally, the existing analytical method to predict fatigue lives of CFRP strengthened steel plates at ambient temperature was modified by considering the temperature effect. Experimental and theoretical results are compared and reasonable agreement is achieved. The influence of the number of CFRP layers and CFRP modulus is also found based on the proposed analytical method.