Creep Behavior of Glubam and CFRP-Enhanced Glubam Beams

Abstract

This paper presents an experimental and numerical study on the creep behavior of glued laminated bamboo (glubam) and carbon-fiber-reinforced plastics (CFRP)-enhanced glubam beams. Short-term mechanical tests were first carried out to determine the tensile, compressive strengths, and modulus of elasticity of glubam. Then the Burger’s creep coefficients of glubam were determined by the in-house tensile and compressive creep tests, which were carried out under different constant stress levels for 365 days. A numerical analysis procedure based on the strain-relaxation method is established to simulate the creep response of CFRP-enhanced glubam beams. Parametric studies show that increasing the amount of the CFRP laminate can effectively decrease the creep response as well as the creep stress in the glubam beam. Comparison between the numerical and the test result of a full-scale model CFRP enhanced glubam girder bridge subjected to 3.5 years creep loading also show that the numerical creep deflections can well capture the trend of creep test results.