Shear Failure Analysis of Concrete Beams Reinforced with Newly Developed GFRP Stirrups

Even though the application of fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) as a concrete reinforcement becomes more common with various advantages, one of the inherent shortcomings may include its brittleness and on-site fabrication and handling. Therefore, the shape of FRP products has been limited only to a straight bar or sheet type. This study suggests a new technique to use glass fiber reinforced polymer (GFRP) bars for the shear reinforcement in concrete beams, and investigates its applicability. The developed GFRP stirrup was used in the concrete instead of ordinary steel stirrups. The experimental program herein evaluates the effectiveness of the GFRP stirrups with respect to different shear reinforcing ratios under three different shear span-to-depth testing schemes. At the same shear reinforcing ratio, the ultimate loads of the beams were similar regardless the shear reinforcing materials. Once a major crack occurs in concrete, however, the failure modes seemed to be relatively brittle with GFRP stirrups. From the measured strains on the surface of concrete, the shear stresses sustained by the stirrups were calculated and the efficiency of the GFRP stirrups was shown to be 91% to 106% depending on the shear span-to-depth ratio.