| Fibre reinforced polymers (FRP's) are considered an alternative to steel reinforcement in concrete structures because of their noncorrosive nature and nonmagnetic properties. FRP materials are, however, brittle and have a lower stiffness compared to steel. The latter property can lead to deflection and crack control problems in FRP-reinforced concrete flexural members under service loads. A considerable amount of information is available for short-term deflection of FRP-reinforced concrete members, but data on long-term deflections are scarce.;This study presents the results of monotonic (short-term) and sustained (long-term) loading tests of 12 concrete shallow beams reinforced with either steel or glass FRP (GFRP) bars. The short-term load-deflection responses of the members are evaluated using existing deflection prediction models (Branson's and Bischoff's), and the long-term deflection results (monitored over a period of one year) are used to evaluate the existing ACI code and CSA standard approaches for estimating long-term deflection. The GFRP-reinforced concrete beams exhibited greater amounts of both immediate deflection (under sustained load) and long-term deflections over time, than the steel-reinforced concrete beams. The long-term deflections of both the steel- and GFRP-reinforced concrete beams are overestimated when using the ACI and CSA approaches. Although ACI Committee 440 recommends use of lower values of the long-term deflection multiplier for GFRP-reinforced concrete beams, results obtained from this study suggest that the same long-term multiplier values may be used for GFRP- and steel-reinforced concrete beams loaded at between 115 to 157 days of concrete age. |
