CICE 2010 - The 5th International Conference on FRP Composites in Civil Engineering September 27-29, 2010, Beijing, China

Flexural Behavior of FRP Reinforced Glubam Beams

Quan Zhou (quanzhou516@163.com ) Institute of Modern Bamboo, Timber and Composite Structures (IBTCS), Hunan University, Changsha, 410082, Hunan, China Yan Xiao (yanxiao@usc.edu) Department of Civil Engineering, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, 90089, USA Institute of Modern Bamboo, Timber and Composite Structures (IBTCS), Hunan University, Changsha, 410082, Hunan, China

ABSTRACT A new type of rectangular glued laminated bamboo (glubam) beam had adopted in the world first truck-safe modern bamboo bridge in Leiyang, Hunan, by the authors. The glubam beams can further be enhanced by FRP. This paper analyzes the effect of some parameters, such as FRP thickness, span-depth ratio, strengthen measures, types of node on bending properties. The basic mechanical model is established to predict the failure. Through the experimental work, the flexural stiffness and ultimate load of FRP reinforced beams are compared with those of unreinforced beams. The result show that the analytical model can forecast the flexural behavior of FRP reinforced glubam beams well. KEY WORDS

1 INTRODUCTION
From the beginning of last century, due to the energy-saving, environmental protection, excellent structural performance, etc., wood has been widely used in building structures. However, because of the shortage of domestic timber resources, wood structure has been developed slowly in China. Despite the high tariffs for imports of timber, a large number of Europe, the United States, Japan's wooden houses have been brought in as a result. But, most of timber is used only for the expensive villas. The research on wood and timber structures also falls behind, while the national wood-structure standard often referring to foreign standards. For the limitations of traditional wooden structures, some experts and scholars began to research the bamboo as a substitute of wood, which would alleviate the shortage of fine structural timber. China is in abounding with bamboo, but most of it remains in the original bamboo stage. In recent years, researchers continue to explore new types of manufactured bamboo production all over the world. S.Rittironk & M. Elnieiri investigate Laminated Bamboo Lumber as an alternative structural material. It takes a different approach from conventional raw bamboo structure, which is an alternative manufactured bamboo. They proposed that LBLs structural properties and superior quality compared to wood lumber in terms of higher strength, higher density, lower shrinkage, and dimension stability, have been proven through many studies. J. Correal & L. Lopez introduced another type of structural bamboo material, glued laminated Guadua (GLG), which has comparable mechanical properties to structural Colombian wood. In some case, the mechanical properties of the GLG are better than those of the best structural wood in Colombia.

The Institute of Modern Bamboo, Timber and Composite Structure (IBTCS) conducted a comprehensive research program, with the goal to develop modern bamboo structures for building and bridge. A modern bamboo pedestrian bridge had been completed, using glued bamboo (glubam) as the main material. The bridge had much lighter superstructure and was easier to construct compared with conventional steel or concrete in terms of same load condition. After the successful completion of the first modern bamboo pedestrian bridge in 2006 [Zhou et al. 2007], the authors were given the opportunity to design and construct a truck loaded 10 m long bridge in the Village of Daozi, Leiyang, Hunan Province. The bridge was a single lane bridge to cross the Xunjiang river and connect the rural roadway network in the local region, as a part of the agriculture infrastructure development by the local government. Different from the former bridge, the girders of this bridge were glubam beams with FRP reinforcement. In this paper, flexural behaviors of glubam beams were studied through tests, compared with those of FRP reinforced beams, which could be taken as a reference of production, design and application of this kind of structure.

2 EXPERIMENT DESIGN
The glubam was made from Phyllostachys edulis, which was sourced from Yiyang city of Hunan province. The resin used in glubam was domestic glue named ESA-T, particular for FRP bonding. Some small clear specimens of glubam had been tested to obtain the main physical and mechanical properties of glubam, in which the values

L. Ye et al. (eds.), Advances in FRP Composites in Civil Engineering Tsinghua University Press, Beijing and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2011

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was the mean tested value, while the other materials referring to literatures (see Table 1). In addition, Elastic modulus of CFRP was 220Gpa and tensile strength was 2.6Gpa as obtained by test.
Table 1 Basic material properties of laminated bamboo In-plane In-plane Bending Elastic Density compressive tensile strength strength strength (GPa) (kg/m3) (MPa) (MPa) (MPa) 54 55 48 35 80 124 75 83 64 9.4 17 12 10 880 650 880 497 398

Materials

in this paper was base on the hypothesis of ideal joint in bamboo beams This paper analyzes the effects of several parameters, such as FRP reinforcement, span to depth ratio, strengthen measures, types of node and so on, on bending properties. Table 2 shows the details of the former group, all of which were large scale beams ranged from B1 to B13, while another group stating the small scale beams ranged from S1 to S15. And then, qualitative analysis of large specimens is carried out.

Plybamboo Typical Bamboo Clum Douglas Fir West White Pine

3 RESULT AND ANALYSIS

3.1 Experimental results The length of pure bending zone is one meter in large tested beams. All of non-reinforced specimens broke in the tensile zone when its tensile strain reached maximum. At the beginning of test, bamboo was in elastic stage. With the load increasing, it showed some plastic behaviors and the flexural stiffness decreased. When bamboo beams cracked, noises came from the bottom and deflection was obvious. The beams collapsed quickly at the moment of failure. On the other hand, FRP reinforcement increased the ultimate strength of the glubam beams. Moreover, cracking noises came later than former and the failure didnt happen only in the compressive zone. Some crack came up in the top of beams, and the deflection of mid-span was less than non-reinforced beams. The ultimate design condition was checked based on the following simple procedure: Mu fy S (1)

Table 2 Details of large tested beams Cross-section dimension (mmmm) B1 B2 B3 B4 B5 B6 B7 B8 B9 B10 B11 B12 B13 100600 100600 100600 100600 100600 100600 100600 100600 100600 100600 100600 100600 100600 Span (mm) 3500 3500 3500 4500 4500 4500 4500 4500 4500 4000 4000 4000 4000 Reinforcement rate (* ) (%) 0.037 0.037 a** (mm) 1250 1250 1250 1750 1750 1750 1750 1750 1750 1500 1500 1500 1500

Pmax

Mu / a

(2)

* the cross-section rate of FRP to bamboo, ** the length between bearing plate and nearest load point.

where Pmax = the ultimate design strength; Mu = moment of flexure subject to Pmax; a = length between bending plate and nearest load point; fy = bending strength of plybamboo. 3.2 Analysis of experimental results 3.2.1 Results of 3.5m span beam tests Ultimate strength of 3.5m span beam calculated from formula (1) and (2) was 360kN, and that of B1 was 340kN which was close to the theoretical value. Finger-zone prematurely approached to failure in tension, resulting in the compression zone of bamboo quickly reached the limits of strain.

There were two groups of glubam beam, and first group had 11 non-reinforced specimens and 2 FRP reinforced specimens. All of those were produced by researched in laboratory under 25 centigrade, while heaters were employed to stabilify the temperature. FRP reinforced beams were tested about one month after they cohered. The specimens design was developed referring to the code ASTM D3737-03, ASTM D7199-07, ASTM D7341-08 and GB/T 503292002. There were some assumptions in experiments: 1) the cross-section of girder remain plane after bending; 2) the adhesive layer between FRP and bamboo was linearelastic body, without regard to its thickness, and bond connects bamboo sheets well; 3) FRP was considered a linear-elastic material; 4) the theoretical value mentioned

H /
Figure 1 Experiment equipments

146 Table 3 Test results of 3.5m-span beams Jointlength (mm) B1 B2 B3 20 30 20 Bolt Reinforcement  FRP -

Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on FRP Composites in Civil Engineering

Initial Ultimate stiffness load (kN/mm) (kN) 7.556 7.096 6.189 390 260 237.86

stress-concentration subject to large force in compressive zone led to the crush of bamboo beam and specimen damage quickly and this behavior belongs to brittle failure. In the other hand, the experiment data of 30mm finger-joint beam B7 and B8 surpassed theoretical values by 26.98% - 27.18% of initial stiffness and 16.1% - 28.53% of ultimate load.
Table 4 Test results of 4.5m-span beams

Joint effect factor J was took into calculation, and revision formula was showed below: PJ Pmax u J (3) where J = 0.75 when there is two finger-area overlap in bending zone, else J = 1 when other conditions. The theoretical result of B2 multiplied 0.75 is 270, close to test result. Moreover, bearing capacity of B3 was close to B2, but 20mm finger-joint lead to deflection increased quickly after cracking. However, it presented good ductility when the specimen stiffness decreased gradually. In addition, initial stiffness of B1 was 7.556 kN/mm, higher than other two beams, due to the strengthening of FRP. As the cracks increasing, FRP reached the strain limit. When load reached 340 kN, a sudden failure occurred. The effect of FRP reinforcement was not obvious for capacity, but it could significantly improve the specimen stiffness. B2, with 7.096 kN/mm initial stiffness, implied that 30mm length finger-joint performance was better than 20mm, also the cracks developed slower than B1, obviously. However, with no bolts to strengthen nodes, resistant ability to shear between sheets extremely decreased, and a sharp increase turned up in the deflection. As a result, after the specimen had been loaded exceed 200 kN, stiffness was declining as the finger-joint cracks expanding. Finally when the load reached 260 kN, the cracks at the bottom suddenly expanded near the vicinity of the neutral axis. After that the specimen broke and the experiment ended. The initial stiffness of B3 was 6.189, lowest in this group. 3.2.2 Results of 4.5m span beam tests Calculated load carrying capacity of 4.5 m clear span beam was 257.1kN. Because finger-zone existed in B4 and B6, their capacity reduced to 192.9kN according to equation (1)(3). Initial stiffness, damage loads and mid-span deflection of each specimen's are listed in Table 2. Specimens B5 and B9 were the counterpart testing cases with the main difference being the existence of FRP reinforcement in B9. As a result, initial stiffness of B9 exceeded 21.5% over B5 and 15.7% of ultimate load. Obviously, FRP played a significant role in improving the stiffness and slowing the destruction. B5 held the lowest initial stiffness and load carrying ability due to short finger-joint. Moreover, Despite of FRP reinforcement enhanced the joint strength in B9,
B4 B5 B6 B7 B8 B9

Jointlength (mm) 30 20 30 30 30 20

Bolt Reinforcement   

FRP    

Initial stiffness (kN/mm) 8.791 6.220 4.722 9.113 9.128 7.556

Ultimate load (kN) 222.5 168.5 242.5 298.54 330.5 195

Through comparison of specimens, it could be seen that ductility of glubam beams of 30mm finger-joint was better than 20 mm finger-joint. In addition, the ductility of B5 was not poor but its bearing ability was worse than others and it destructed too early in the experiment, which attributed to short length of joint. B4, B6, B7, B8, with 30mm length joint, put out fine ductility, even better than the FRP reinforced B9, and possessed higher ultimate load. Although joint-finger cracked early in B6, the crack exploded for a long time until it was crushed. To sum up, all of above implied that longer finger-joint performed better ductility in the bending condition. 3.2.3 Results of 4m span beam tests It is can be seen from the experiments that each of tested initial stiffness was similar to calculated results. In addition, as there was no joint-fault overlapped in this group of beams, we only took the finger length into consider. Then, the initial stiffness and carrying ability of 30 mm beams exceeded 20mm beams by 3.72%-9.96% and 60.4% - 42%, respectively. Moreover, those of FRP reinforced glubam beams surpassed non-reinforced by about 10% and 42%. Obviously, members which did not reinforced with bolt and FRP had poor characteristics, extremely inappropriate to be adopted in practice and design, since their abilities were poorer than others.
Table 5 Test results of 4 m-span beams Jointlength (mm) B10 B11 B12 B13 20 20 30 30 Bolt Initial FRP Reinforce- reinforce- stiffness ment ment (kN/mm)         10.462 10.462 11.504 10.851 Ultimate load (kN) 212 239.5 340 170.5

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3.2.4 Small cross-section beam A four point load method, was used to test specimens. The clear distance between the edges of the bearing plate and the nearest loading point was about one-third of the length of beam, equal to those between load points. Moreover at least a lateral support located at space between the reaction and the load point. Deflectometers fixed at the position of load points, reactions and mid-span, where five strain gauges located throughout the depth. All the measured data were record simultaneously by the static strain measurement system. Some parameters of small beams were listed in Table 6, such as cross-section dimension, span, reinforcement-rate and so on. Through Comparison with three types of beams, the quantitative reinforce effects of FRP was obtained accurately. The results showed that load carrying ability of FRP reinforced beams were higher than non-reinforced beams with a range from 2.95% - 28.77%, and larger thickness resulted in more increase of ultimate load. Further tests are still underway in this testing series.
Table 6 Test results of small volume beams Beam number S1, 2, 3 S4,S5 S6 S7 S8,9,10 S11S12 S13 S14 S15 Cross-section dimension (mmmm) 56112 56112 56112 56112 84160 84160 84160 84160 84160 Span (mm) 2016 2016 2016 2016 2240 2240 2240 2240 2240 Reinforcement rate type (%) H* 0.1 0.5 H* 0.21 0.35 0.69 Fmax (kN) 27.12 13.95 28 32 73 28.5 74 78 94

(GluBam) beams with or without CFRP strengthening. Some observations can be made through the preliminary examination of the testing results. Longer finger-length and bolt reinforcements contributed to increase of the initial stiffness, load carrying capacity and deformability of glubam beams. Through the analysis on FRP reinforced glubam beam, it was found that FRP reinforcement could effectively improve the specimen stiffness. Appropriate FRP thickness should be chosen while enhancing the load carrying capacity of glubam beam, in order to avoid overreinforcement. Since different batches of specimens were produced in different period and the process and gluing environment is not the same, resulting in their various characteristics in bending, it is advised that the same process and quality control means should be applied to ensure uniform performance in structure. Due to the presence of finger-zone which may reduce the load bearing capacity of glubam beams, the joint effect factor J was adopted in the calculation of load bearing capacity of components. However, more studies are required to improve the accuracy of prediction. Therefore, more researches and studies are needed to be done in order to improve the factor of J in future.

PREFERENCES
Moody, R., Falk, R., and Williamson, T. (1990), Strength of Glulam Beams Volume Effects, Sugiyama, H. ed. Proceedings of the 1990 International Timber Engineering Conference, October 23-25, Tokyo, pp.176-182. Vol. 1. Xiao, Y., Inoue, M., and Paudel S., Modern Bamboo Structures: Proceedings of first international conference on modern bamboo structures, CRC Press, Taylor and Francis, London, 2008. ISBN-13: 9780415475976 (hbk), 9780203888926(ebook), 299p. Xiao, Y., Shan, B., Chen, G., Zhou, Q., and She, L.Y. (2008), Development of A New Type of Glulam GluBam, Modern Bamboo Structures, Xiao et al. edited, CRC Press, UK, 299p. Zhou, Q., Shan, B., and Xiao, Y. 2007. Design and Construction of a Modern Bamboo Pedestrian Bridge. Proceedings of the International Conference on Modern Bamboo Structures. ICBS-2007. Changsha. China. Oct. 28-30. Xiao, Y., Zhou, Q., and Shan, B., Design and Construction of Modern Bamboo Bridges, ASCE Journal of Bridge Engineering, (in press) Yang, Huifeng, Liu, Weiqing (2008), Study on flexural behavior of FRP reinforced glulam beams. Journal of Building Structures. 64-71. Vol.28.1. Liu, Weiqing, Yang, Huifeng (2008), Experimental study on flexural behavior of engineered wood beams. Journal of Building Structures. 90-95. Vol.29.1.

* Load is perpendicular to the plane of bamboo sheet

Figure 2 Load-deflection curve of small volume beam

4 CONCLUSION
Loading tests were conducted on glue-laminated bamboo