Deflection and crack-width prediction of concrete beams reinforced with glass FRP rods

Concrete beams reinforced with fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) bars exhibit large deflections and crack widths as compared to concrete beams reinforced with steel due to the low modulus of elasticity of FRP. Current design methods for predicting deflections at service load and crack widths developed in concrete structures reinforced with steel bars may not be used for concrete structures reinforced with FRP bars. Thus, the ACI 440 Committee has provided design guidelines for concrete beams reinforced with FRP bars. Verification of the ACI 440 methods for predicting deflections and crack widths for glass fiber reinforced polymer reinforced concrete beams are presented in this paper. In addition, improvement to the crack width equation was suggested to account for 2 layers of reinforcement. This study shows that ACI 440.1R-01 can be effectively used to predict deflections in concrete beams reinforced with FRP bars and crack width in beams with one-layer FRP bars. However, when FRP bars are placed in two layers, ACI 440.1R-01 can be used after some parameters are modified. Six full concrete beams reinforced with different GFRP reinforcement ratios were load tested and the measured deflections and crack widths were analyzed and compared with those predicted by the proposed models. The experimental results compared well with those proposed by the model. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.