Experimental Study on GFRP Reinforcing Bars with Hollow Section

Fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) has been generally accepted by civil engineers as an alternative for steel reinforcing bars (rebar) due to its advantageous specific tensile strength and non-corrosiveness. Even though some glass fiber reinforced polymer (GFRP) rebars are available on a market, GFRP is still somewhat uncompetitive over steel rebar due to their high cost and relatively low elastic modulus, and brittle failure characteristic. If the price of component materials of GFRP rebar is not reduced, it would be another solution to increase the performance of each material to the highest degree. The tensile strength generally decreases with increasing diameter of FRP rebar. One of the reasons is that only fibers except for fibers in center resist the external force due to the lack of force transfer and the deformation of only outer fibers by gripping system. Eliminating fibers in the center, which do not play an aimed role fully, are helpful to reduce the price and finally FRP rebar would be optimized over the price. In this study, the effect of the hollow section in a cross-section of a GFRP rebar was investigated. A GFRP rebar with 19 mm diameter was selected and an analysis was performed for the tensile test results. Parameter was the ratio of hollow section over solid cross-section. Four kinds of hollow sections were planned. A total of 27 specimens, six specimens for each hollow section and three specimens with a solid cross-section were manufactured and tested. The change by the ratio of hollow section over soli