Behavior of FRP rods under uniaxial tensile strength with multiple materials as an alternative to steel rebar

Abstract

Steel corrosion raises maintenance costs and reduces the durability of steel-reinforced concrete structures. Therefore, societies must create their own sustainable model based on finding new technologies that enable them to benefit from the available resources thus reducing their construction cost and maintenance burdens. Fiber Reinforced Polymer (FRP) introduces an innovative and alternative approach to replace traditional steel bars and strands. So, this paper investigates the behavior of synthetic and natural FRP of different fiber volume fractions (Vf) under uniaxial tensile load. To carry out this, four types of fiber are made by hand lay-up technique. Three of them are synthetic fibers which include glass fibers, nylon fibers, and polypropylene fibers, whereas jute is used as natural fibers. The results show hand lay-up technique of FRP gives resembles the results of the Pultrusion process. The tensile strength and the elasticity modulus increased by increasing the Vf, regardless of the type of fiber. The samples GFRP-3, PFRP-P2, NFRP-N2, and JFRP-J3 showed the highest tensile strength of 971.89 MPa, 130.74 MPa, 262.54 MPa, and 178.42 MPa respectively, that improve by 26.68 %, 19.57 %, 15.44 %, 26.55 %, while the modulus of elasticity showed improvement by 20.13 %, 42 %, 14 %, and 32.93 % compared with a reference sample of the same group respectively. Furthermore, Microscope images indicated good fiber distribution and resin-fiber impregnation across the FRP bars.

Keywords

• Fiber volume fraction (Vf)
• FRP
• Tensile strength
• Natural fibers
• Synthetic fibers
• Microstructure