Fatigue Behavior and Connection Efficiency of Pultruded GFRP Beams

Abstract

This study describes the fatigue performance of pultruded glass fiber reinforced plastic (GFRP) box and wide flange (WF) beams without and with flexural connections. A total of 51 tests were conducted under cyclic bending loads to monitor stiffness degradation, failure progression, failure patterns, and fatigue performance. The test data revealed that sections showed no stiffness reduction till they reached 70–80% of their fatigue life. Fatigue performance of GFRP sections versus steel has been presented. The effect of load application mode (uniform across flange and over a part of flange) on the fatigue performance of box sections is described. The WF sections showed better fatigue performance than the box sections. Failure modes revealed that the web-flange junction on the compression side was the principal location of fatigue failure. A total of 35 tests were conducted on sections with connections to study the performance and efficiency of sections with splice connection as compared to those sections without any connection.