Static and Fatigue Behavior of Thick Pultruded GFRP Plates with Surface Damage
Publication: Journal of Bridge Engineering
Volume 14, Issue 2
Abstract
Glass fiber-reinforced polymer (GFRP) bridge decks suffering frequent cyclic loading of heavy wheels require relatively thick pultruded composites. To examine the behavior of 12 mm thick pultruded GFRP plates containing surface layers and to study the influence of surface damage, which may be present on such decks, static and fatigue tensile tests were carried out. Severe indentation yielded not only visible damage, but also an invisible damage in the unidirectional layer. Loss of cross section area due to both damages affected the static ultimate loads. Fatigue cracks were found around higher stress concentrations on the surface layer as early as approximately 10% of the total fatigue life. These initial cracks, however, barely affected the fatigue life because delamination of the surface layers prevented the cracks from propagating. The invisible shear crack due to indentation barely affected the fatigue life since earlier splitting between initially damaged and undamaged fibers mitigated the crack propagation.
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Acknowledgments
Static and fatigue tests were conducted in a research project for GFRP bridge decks in cooperation with the AGC Matex Co. and Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industry Co.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Bridge Engineering
Volume 14 • Issue 2 • March 2009
Pages: 102 - 111
Copyright
© 2009 ASCE.
History
Received: May 14, 2007
Accepted: Aug 11, 2008
Published online: Mar 1, 2009
Published in print: Mar 2009
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