Experimental Evaluation of Thermal Effects on the Tensile Mechanical Properties of Pultruded GFRP Rods

Abstract

This work represents a preliminary study of a more articulate research project whose aim is to show the possible applications of pultruded products in civil engineering and, in particular, the substitution of FRP rods in classic concrete structures. We present an experimental procedure to first degrade FRP rods with aligned continuous glass fibres through exposure to elevated temperature and then evaluate the changes in their tensile mechanical parameters. The procedure to expose the rods to heat is defined starting from the specifications contained in ASTM D794-68, while the evaluation of the tensile mechanical parameters was set up in a previous work for analogous undamaged FRP rods. From the observation of the experimental data obtained in this work, it is possible to show the strong effects of heat on the ultimate strength and on the Young’s modulus of the material that constitutes the rods. In particular, the ultimate strength shows a constant degradation when the temperature increases. By contrast, the Young’s modulus is subject to different changes at different temperature exposures.