Laboratory and field testing of an FRP-reinforced concrete guideway

运输基础设施的耐久性是政府和私营部门关注的一个主要问题。在该项目中，庞巴迪运输公司和皇后大学的结构工程研究人员正在合作开展一个项目，该项目涉及在支撑新测试轨道的单轨混凝土梁中使用耐用的有色金属钢筋。 该技术的使用有望大大降低支持单轨轨道的民用基础设施的维护成本。这主要是由于用于加固混凝土梁的玻璃纤维增强聚合物钢筋具有优异的耐久性。 与传统的钢筋不同，这些玻璃纤维钢筋不会生锈。 该项目将是同类项目中的第一个，这种类型的钢筋将用于直径达30 mm的大型混凝土梁，重量约为30吨。钢筋将用作纵向和横向抗剪钢筋。虽然这种类型的钢筋的较小的钢筋尺寸已成功地用于公路桥面应用，并显示出很大的前景，玻璃纤维钢筋，特别是大直径钢筋，还没有探索单轨应用。因此，该测试轨道项目将是一个极好的机会，可以在真实的生活条件下研究在该应用中使用该技术的可行性，其中列车以高达90 km/hr的速度行驶将通过测试梁。这些梁，即一根用玻璃纤维钢筋加固的梁和一根用传统钢筋加固的相邻梁，将装有特殊的应变和挠度传感器，以便在列车通过轨道时收集测试数据。 此外，还将建造两个用玻璃纤维钢筋加固的半比例梁，并在实验室中进行失效测试，以进一步了解这些梁的性能，并确定其极限强度和使用寿命。该项目将培训一名硕士生、一名博士后研究员和至少一名本科生，沿着庞巴迪运输公司的几名工程师和人员。

Durability of transport infrastructure is a major concern for government and private sectors. In this project Bombardier Transportation and structural engineering researchers at Queen's university are collaborating on a project related to the use of durable non-ferrous reinforcement in a mono-rail concrete girder that supports a new test track. The use of this technology promises significant reduction in maintenance costs of the civil infrastructure supporting monorail tracks. This is primarily due to the excellent durability characteristics of the glass-fiber reinforced polymer bars used to reinforce the concrete beams. Unlike conventional reinforcement these fiberglass bars do not rust. The project will be the first of its kind, where this type of reinforcement will be used in diameters up to 30 mm in such a large scale concrete beam that weighs about 30 tons. The bars will be used as longitudinal and transverse shear reinforcement. While smaller bar sizes of this type of reinforcement have been successfully used in highway bridge deck applications and showed great promise, fiberglass bars, especially large diameter bars, have not been explored for monorail applications. As such, this test track project would be an excellent opportunity to investigate the feasibility of using this technology in this application under real life conditions, where trains travelling at speeds of up to 90 km/hr will pass over the test beams. These beams, namely one reinforced with fiber glass bars and an adjacent beam reinforced with conventional steel reinforcement, will be instrumented with special strain and deflection sensors to collect data during testing when trains pass over the track. Additionally, two half scale beams reinforced with fiberglass bars will also be built and tested to failure in the lab to further understand behavior and establish the ultimate strength and service life of these beams. The project will involve training of one master's student, one post-doctoral fellow and at least one undergraduate student, along with several engineers and personnel from Bombardier Transportation.