Flexural behaviour of reinforced concrete beams reinforced with Glass Fibre Reinforced Polymer (GFRP) bars: experimental and analytical study

Glass Fibre-Reinforced Polymer (GFRP) rebars have been widely used in the construction industry to prevent corrosion and increase structural strength properties. The benefits of GFRP bars include strong performance against fatigue, non-conductivity, electromagnetic resistance, and a high tensile strength-to-weight ratio. Compared to conventional steel-reinforced bars used in reinforced concrete constructions, GFRP bars are corrosion-resistant, lightweight, and strong. This paper presents an experimental, numerical and analytical study of the flexural behaviour of the concrete beam reinforced with GFRP bars. A total of 9 GFRP Reinforced Concrete (RC) beams, 150 × 200 × 2500 mm, were tested under the four-point loading condition in 50 T capacity of the loading frame. The main objective of this study is to investigate the load versus deflection behaviour, mode of failure, and effect of concrete strength and reinforcement ratio on the crack width of GFRP RC beams. Three groups of concrete beams were divided, each with three specimens cast. The percentage of reinforcement ratio (0.75%, 1.02% and 1.28%) and concrete strength (30 MPa, 40 MPa and 50 MPa) varied in all three groups. The experimental mid-span deflection was observed and compared to the numerical and analytical study. The numerical analysis prediction deflection was agreed with the experimental results. The experimental results were compared to the proposed method, numerical analysis and codes ACI 440.1R CSA S806. The proposed method and numerical analysis were closely correlated to the experimental results. © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024.