FIRST EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS ON THE MECHANICAL BEHAVIOUR OF “PULTRUDED” BEAMS REALIZED BY BONDING MODULAR PLATES

The pultruded elements, especially beams, are now used for the construction of various civil engineering opera (bridges and footbridges) but what slows their spread on large scale is a poor economic attractiveness as well as a number of uncertainties that still remain on the their mechanical properties (fire resistance, deformability, delayed response to the viscosity of the resin, instability). Given the great interest of the international scientific community towards adhesive joints, the authors of this work have started an experimental campaign, followed by a numerical one, aimed at characterize mechanics of pultruded double-T beams obtained by bonding modular pultruded plates each other. In particular, in this work are presented and compared the first experimental results related to four-point bending tests on a priori pultruded beams and a posteriori pultruded beams (obtained by bonding pultruded plates). The experimental results demonstrate the feasibility of the project