Composite reinforcement of L-spliced wood piles
An experimental study was conducted to evaluate the flexural strength of restored wood piles strengthened with a glass fibre reinforced polymer (GFRP). Small-scale testing on matched samples of mini landscape ties (3″ × 4″ × 8′) treated with a preservative was carried out. To represent a restoration technique recently introduced on pier piles in Atlantic Canada, a sample was first cut into an L shape at mid-length. The two pieces of the sample were spliced together and wrapped with GFRP. Results show that restored samples had an increase in bending strength of approximately 32% versus the un-spliced control samples. Furthermore, ductile behaviour was observed for all restored samples. A theoretical model was investigated and shown capable of predicting the ultimate bending strength of restored samples with an average error of 2.7% compared to experimental results.