Parametric study of carbon FRP prestressed concrete box girders

Abstract

This paper presents a parametric study of flexural response and forces in the post-tensioned tendons of concrete box girders reinforced and prestressed with carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) tendons. Numerical investigations have been done using a finite element method based software to study the response of the girder by varying different parameters concerning the post-tensioned or the non-prestressed tendons like the degree of prestressing, position and diameter and variation of compression reinforcement ratio. Effect of the use of hybrid FRP bars of Carbon and Glass FRP as non-prestressed bars in the beam as opposed to CFRP bars has also been studied. The primary motive was to study the variation of ductility measured in terms of energy ratio. It is observed that the energy ratio increases by 23.13% for the girder with non-prestressed hybrid FRP bars. Furthermore, there is an increase in energy ratio with increase in the compression reinforcement of the beam