Flexural behavior of GFRP-reinforced concrete encased steel composite beams

To improve the ductility and meanwhile ensure satisfactory corrosion-resistant performance, a new type of FRP-reinforced concrete encased steel (FRP-RCS) composite beams comprised of ductile structural steel shapes in combination with corrosion-resistant FRP-reinforced concrete was proposed and studied. An experimental investigation on flexural behavior of the proposed FRP-RCS beams was conducted by testing a total of seven simply supported beam specimens subjected to four-point bending loads. The test specimens included one FRP-reinforced concrete (FRP-RC) beam reinforced with GFRP bars only and six FRP-RCS beams reinforced with both GFRP bars and encased structural steel shapes. The main parameters considered in this study were concrete compressive strength, amounts of GFRP reinforcement as well as ratio and configuration of encased structural steel shapes. The test results indicate that using encased steel shapes can provide a significant enhancement in load carrying capacity, stiffness, ductility and energy absorption capacity of tested beams. The tested FRP-RC beam suffered a brittle failure caused by the sudden fracture of tensile GFRP bars whereas the proposed FRP-RCS beams behaved in a ductile manner mainly due to the beneficial residual strength of encased steel shapes following concrete crushing. In addition, an analytical method was suggested to predict the load carrying capacity of the proposed FRP-RCS beams.