Structural behavior of hybrid FRP composite I-beam

This paper presents the structural behavior of an innovative hybrid Fiber Reinforced Polymers (FRP) beam consisting of carbon/glass fibers and vinyl-ester resin. The advanced feature of this hybridization is the optimum use of carbon and glass fibers in the flanges to maximize structural performance while reducing the overall cost by using only glass fibers in the web section. A series of beam tests were conducted under four-point bending varying ratio of flange to web width (bf/bw) and volume content of carbon and glass fiber in the flanges. Experimental investigations revealed that the ratio of flange to web width of hybrid FRP I-shaped beams plays an important role in their structural behavior. Small flange beams (bf/bw = 0.43) showed stable and linear behavior under bending moment and failed in a brittle manner by delamination of the compressive flange at the interfacial layers while wide flange beams (bf/bw = 1.13) exhibited unstable and nonlinear behavior in the buckling and post-buckling region leading to delamination failure of the compressive flange. The experimental and analytical results discussed in this paper emphasize on the best composition of carbon and glass fibers for the optimum design of such hybrid beams. It is found that the maximum strength of hybrid FRP beams can be obtained with the volume content of carbon fiber to be 25–33%. Furthermore, the results of this study show the potential of applying hybrid FRP beams for bridge components.