Assessment of Structural Behavior of Vertical Curved Hollow Steel Beams Strengthened Using CFRP Composite

Abstract

In recent years, retrofitting and strengthening of steel structures with carbon fiber reinforced polymers (CFRPs) is a rapidly developing technique that has attracted the attention of many researchers. Most previous studies in this area have been carried out on the behavior of straight steel sections. Vertical curved steel beams are typically used in structures, such as steel bridges, steel trusses, and others. Given the presence of an axial force in vertical curved beams, the performance of such beams under vertical loads is different from that of straight beams. To the author’s knowledge, no independent article has studied the effect of CFRP strengthening on the behavior of vertical curved steel beams with a square hollow section (SHS). However, this study explored the effect of CFRP strengthening on the structural behavior of the vertical curved SHS steel beams under concentrated load or uniformly distributed load using finite element investigation. To analyze and study the effects of CFRP strengthening on the behavior of the vertical curved steel beams, three-dimensional modeling and nonlinear static analysis were used. The results indicated that using CFRP to strengthen the vertical curved steel beams in some specific locations has a significant effect on increasing the ultimate capacity of these beams. CFRP strengthening could further increase the ultimate capacity of the vertical curved steel beams under concentrated load over the ultimate capacity of the vertical curved steel beams under uniform distributed load.