Experimental Investigation on the Shear Behaviour of Concrete Beams Reinforced with GFRP Reinforcement Bars
This paper presents the experimental results of shear behaviour on concrete beams longitudinally reinforced with glass fiber-reinforced polymer (GFRP) reinforcement bars. Totally sixteen concrete beams were tested under static load. Half of the tested beams were longitudinally reinforced with GFRP reinforcement bars, while, the other half were reinforced with conventional steel reinforcement bars. The beams were prepared with varying test variables, such as shear span-to-effective depth ratios (a/d), amount and types of longitudinal reinforcement bars and stirrup spacing. The experimental results show that the ratios of a/d and stirrup spacing significantly influence the ultimate capacities of the beams. Moreover, more closely spaced diagonal shear cracks were resulted in GFRP reinforced concrete (RC) beams compared to steel RC beams.