Behavior of Honeycomb FRP Sandwich Structure under Combined Effects of Service Load and Low Temperatures
Publication: Journal of Composites for Construction
Volume 15, Issue 6
Abstract
This paper presents the experimental study about the behavior of honeycomb fiber-reinforced polymer (HFRP) sandwich structure with corrugated cores under the combined effects of service load and low-temperature cycling (ranging from 24°C to ). The potential debonding at the interfaces between the corrugated cores and face sheets because of the service-load condition specific to bridge engineering at low temperatures and its impact on stiffness are studied in this paper. The finite-element analysis (FEA) was utilized to determine the load in the experiment. The experiment consisted of tests conducted at four different temperatures. The load-strain responses were monitored to study the behaviors of HFRP sandwich panels. On the basis of the observation and results from the experiment, this paper concludes that the deflection limit span over 400 can potentially be adopted in practice without incurring stiffness degradation because of interface debonding. The paper also shows that it is essential to study the tolerable size of cracks or defects at the interfaces before applying this deflection limit as a design criterion. The experimental results in this study serve as a necessary supplement to the material tests and confirm that the stiffness of the HFRP sandwich panels at the structural level will also increase when the temperatures are decreased at least up to the service-limit state. Finally, this paper verifies the important role that tensile stress plays in interface debonding and suggests that previous tests may underestimate the actual shear strength of the interfaces.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Acknowledgments
The financial support to the second writer provided by the National Science Foundation’s NSF CAREER program (NSFCMS-0550899) is gratefully acknowledged. The test specimens were provided by the KSCI, and we thank Dr. Jerry Plunkett of KSCI and Dave Meggers of KSDOT for their assistance. The writers would also like to acknowledge Ken Thomas and Larry Roberts for their assistance with the testing setups.
References
AASHTO. (2010). “AASHTO LRFD bridge design specifications.” 5th Ed., Washington, DC.
Alagusundaramoorthy, P., Harik, I. E., and Choo, C. C. (2006). “Structural behavior of FRP composite bridge deck panels.” J. Bridge Eng., 11(4), 384–393.
Alampalli, S., O’Conner, J., and Yannotti, A. P. (2002). “Fiber reinforced polymer composites for the superstructure of a short-span rural bridge.” Compos. Struct., 58(1), 21–27.
Anderson, T. L. (2005). Fracture mechanics: Fundamentals and applications, 3rd Ed., CRC, Boca Raton, FL.
ASTM International. (2006). “Standard test method for core shear properties of sandwich constructions by beam flexure.” ASTM Standard C393/C393M-06, West Conshohocken, PA. 〈http://www.astm.org/DATABASE.CART/HISTORICAL/C393C393M-06.htm〉 (Dec. 7, 2011).
Camanho, P. P., and Davila, C. G. (2002). “Mixed-mode decohesion finite elements for the simulation of delamination in composite materials.” NASA/TM-2002-211737, NASA, Hanover, MD, 1–37.
Chen, A., and Davalos, J. F. (2004). “Behavior of honeycomb FRP sandwich sinusoidal core panels with skin effect.” Proc., 9th ASCE Aerospace Division Int. Conf. on Engineering, Construction, and Operations in Challenging Environments, ASCE, Reston, VA, 625–632.
Davalos, J. F., Qiao, P., Xu, X. F., Robinson, J., and Barth, K. E. (2001). “Modeling and characterization of fiber-reinforced plastic honeycomb sandwich panels for highway bridge applications.” Compos. Struct., 52(3–4), 441–452.
Dutta, P. K., and Hui, D. (1996). “Low-temperature and freeze-thaw durability of thick composites.” Composites, Part B, 27(3–4), 371–379.
Ji, H. S., Song, W., and Ma, Z. (2010). “Design, test and field application of a GFRP corrugated-core sandwich bridge.” Eng. Struct., 32(9), 2814–2824.
Kalny, O., Peterman, R. J., Ramirez, G., Cai, C. S., and Meggers, D. (2003). “Structural performance of fiber-reinforced polymer honeycomb sandwich panels: Evaluation of size effect and wrap strengthening.” Transp. Res. Rec. , 1845(1), 191–199.
Li, L., Ma, Z., and Oesterle, R. (2010). “Improved longitudinal joint details in decked bulb tees for accelerated bridge construction: Concept development.” J. Bridge Eng., 15(3), 327–336.
Liu, Z., Cousins, T. E., Lesko, J. J., and Sotelino, E. D. (2008). “Design recommendations for a FRP bridge deck supported on steel superstructure.” J. Compos. Constr., 12(6), 660–668.
Ma, Z., Choppali, U., and Li, L. (2007). “Cycling tests of a fibre-reinforced polymer honeycomb sandwich deck panel at very cold temperatures.” Int. J. Mater. Prod. Technol., 28(1/2), 178–197.
Nordin, C., Ma, Z., and Penumadu, D. (2010). “Combined effect of loading and cold temperature on the stiffness of glass fiber composites.” J. Compos. Constr., 14(2), 224–230.
Plunkett, Jerry D. (1997). “Fiber-reinforced polymer honeycomb short span bridge for rapid installation.” IDEA Project Final Rep., Contract NCHRP-96-ID030, National Research Council, Transportation Research Board, Washington, DC.
Wang, A. S. D. (1989). “An overview of the delamination problem in structural composites.” Key Eng. Mater., 37, 1–20.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Composites for Construction
Volume 15 • Issue 6 • December 2011
Pages: 985 - 991
Copyright
© 2011 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Oct 31, 2010
Accepted: May 19, 2011
Published online: May 21, 2011
Published in print: Dec 1, 2011
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.