Externally bonded FRP reinforcement is wrapped around concrete members in order to provide confinement and/or shear strengthening. The need for bending the fibers over the member corners affects the performance of the FRP laminate and the efficiency of its confining/strengthening action. This paper presents an experimental study focusing on the effects of corner radius on FRP mechanical properties. A unique re-usable test device was designed and used for this purpose such that plies of FRP could be applied over interchangeable corner inserts. The radius of the inserts ranged from a minimum of 0 to a maximum of 50.8 mm, and one or two plies of carbon FRP were used. The monitored parameters were strain distribution in the FRP laminate and load. It was found that only a portion of the CFRP laminate capacity was developed when failure occurred at the corner. Increasing the number of plies from one to two slightly improved the efficiency of the laminate.

  • INTRODUCTION

  • EXPERIMENTAL PROGRAM

  • TEST RESULTS

  • CONCLUSIONS

  • ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

  • REFERENCES

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