Elastic local buckling of steel I-sections strengthened with bonded FRP strips

• A study of the local buckling of FRP strengthen steel I-sections is presented.
• A parametric study is conducted to investigate the parameters of the problem.
• The behavior is compared to sections strengthened with traditional steel plates.
• FRP with high transverse modulus and high shear modulus is more effective.

This paper presents an analytical investigation of the local buckling of steel I-sections strengthened with bonded Fiber Reinforced Polymer (FRP) plates to improve their local buckling capacity. An analytical stability model is presented that considers the section as being composed of a group of plates that are linked together. The non-strengthened parts of the section were modeled as isotropic plates while each of the strengthened ones was dealt with as a sandwich composite plate that was modeled as an orthotropic material. A parametric study is presented to investigate the effect of each of the parameters of the problem including the strengthening scheme, the section geometry, and the properties of the strengthening material.