REINFORCEMENT OF PULTRUDED FRP DECK WITH VEHICLE DECK PLATE CONSIDERING LOCAL LOAD EFFECT

Abstract

 The study focused on how FRP deck responded to tyre loads and aimed to propose a method for light vehicles to cross a FRP pedestrian bridge with an FRP deck. The reinforcing plate was installed on the FRP deck, originally designed for pedestrian use only, to allow for the passage of light vehicles. First, a static loading experiment was conducted using a test specimen with the GFRP reinforcing plate installed on the deck made of GFRP pultruded pipes. The experiment showed that the strength against local loads improved by more than four times with the reinforcement. During the experiment, it was observed in the reinforced specimens that cracks occurred at the corners of a deck pipe. The FEM analysis revealed that the maximum stress occurs at the boundary between the corners and the web in the reinforced deck. It was also found that when the stress in the corners reaches the tensile strength, the strain there shows nonlinear behavior. Finally, based on the results of the FEM analysis, a simple theoretical calculation method for the bending stress in the reinforced deck was proposed.