Short-term and long-term behaviour of GFRP bars and bends

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The total cost to the economy due to corrosion of steel worldwide in 2010 was estimated at USD $2.2 trillion which is about 3% of the world's GDP (Hays 2010). As part of this damage, corrosion of steel reinforcement in concrete structures is causing enormous hardships as deterioration has reached unsafe levels in many cases and repair costs have mounted to billions of dollars. Two obvious examples of this in Canada are the deteriorating bridges in the largest cities, Toronto and Montreal. A most feasible alternative to steel reinforcement in concrete structures is Glass Fiber Reinforcing Polymers (GFRP). This proposal relates to the use of GFRP as internal reinforcement in concrete infrastructure. The recent work on short term tests has shown excellent performance of GFRP-reinforced concrete components but available information on their long-term performance is seriously limited. The objective of this project is to generate information for developing rational design guidelines for GFRP-reinforced structures with life spans of 100 years or longer. Reinforcement in concrete structures is subjected to sustained loads for this long life. There are no dependable models that allow determination of time to failure for these materials. The proposed work will investigate this issue for GFRP straight bars and bent bars under various levels of sustained loads, develop rational models and design guidelines that can help us build sustainable infrastructure. This work will be carried out in collaboration with experts from structural design companies and GFRP manufacturers. Additional benefits for Canada from this work will include training of engineers, development of guidelines for concrete design codes and manuals as well as providing Canadian companies and engineers with a global competitive edge for the design of structures using the state-of-the-art research and emerging technologies.