Effect of FRP Wrapping on Fatigue Bond Behavior of Spliced Concrete Beams

AbstractThis paper presents the first phase of an ongoing research program at University of Waterloo to study the effect of external fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) sheet wrap confinement along a lap splice of reinforced concrete (RC) beams on their fatigue bond strength. Fatigue loading of RC beams containing a lap splice resulted in an increase in the number and width of cracks, an increase in deflection, and a decrease of the bond strength between the steel rebar and the surrounding concrete. The phase of the research described here consists of monotonic and fatigue tests of sixteen reinforced concrete beam with dimensions 2200×350×250  mm. Each beam was reinforced with two 20 M bars lap spliced in the constant moment region of the tension zone and two 10 M bars in the compression zone outside the constant moment region. The test variables were the presence or absence of an FRP wrapping, the type of the FRP wrapping glass or carbon fiber-reinforced polymer (GFRP or CFRP), the type of loading, and the fa...