Strength of tubular hollow steel sections beams externally reinforced by carbon FRP sheets

Abstract EN

The experimental research reported is aimed using small quantities of CFRP strips to provide tubular section against local buckling for (five) specimens of steel beams.

The tubular hollow steel beams sections are made from welding thin plates at their edges.

The use of high-strength advanced composite materials tends to accompany the minimum of structural weight, and is hence presently being assessed for effectiveness as supplementary external reinforcing materials.

Composite beams of fiber-reinforced polymers (FRP) and steel formed as tubular steel sections externally reinforced by thin-bonded carbon FRP (CFRP) sheets, exhibit many phenomena not found in conventional structural steel components, and these can have a marked bearing both on the behavior of members composed of these materials and, by connotation, on the way in which such members are designed.

The type of strengthen carbon fiber is a unidirectional woven fiber mat of mid strength which is a product of Sika coded as SikaWrap-230C.

The CFRP is fixed using a resin Sikadure-330.The study is focusing on the local stability of such members.

Also formulation of the finite element method used for analyzing the tested beams.

The finite element model will be using the experimental load-deflection results of the steel beams.

The use of ANSYS-9 to create the finite element model is adopted, the maximum different between experimental results and ANSYS-9 results is 8.7 %.