Long-Term Behaviour of Prestressed Basalt Fibre Reinforced Polymer Bars

The opportunity to use basalt fibre reinforced polymer (BFRP) bars as internal reinforcement for concrete could be beneficial in aspect of limiting the relatively high deformability. The information about long-term behaviour of such reinforcement under prestressing loading would be helpful to estimate prestress losses, which have to be expected. Obtaining such experimental data and analysing it could be used for further developing of the design principles and procedure for prestressed elements with BFRP reinforcement.A testing rig (referred to as creep rig) has been build to evaluate the behaviour of BFRP rebars in constant loading conditions with a direct correlation to steel rebars and cables. All samples have been put in to equal tension of 16 kN and have been monitored over a long period of time. The constant level of loading was kept and corresponding deformations have been measured. This study aims to investigate the behaviour of BFRP rebars under long term static loading.