Experimental Study on Lateral-Torsional Buckling of PFRP Cantilevered Channel Beams

AbstractThis paper presents the experimental result on the structural behaviors of pultruded fiber reinforced plastic (PFRP) cantilevered channel beams. The dimensions of the beam specimens is 102×29×6mm. A total of 26 specimens were tested to investigate the effects of unbraced length of the beam on the lateral-torsional buckling behavior and the buckling moment of the beams. Then, the obtained buckling moments were compared to the critical buckling moment obtained from the modified LFRD steel design equation in order to check the adequacy of the equation. From the tests, the response curves can be generally classified into two types: short beams and slender beams, depending on the range of the linear elastic responses. The general mode of failure of the specimens is the lateral-torsional buckling. In addition, the equation can adequately predict the critical buckling moment for the slender beam. However, for the short beam, the equation overestimates the critical buckling moment