An experimental investigation into the behavior of glassfiber reinforced polymer elements at elevated temperatures

This thesis presents a literature review and results of an experimental study about the effects of high temperatures and cyclic loading on the physical and mechanical properties of pultruded glass fiber reinforced polymer (GFRP) square tubes used in civil engineering structural applications. Most laboratory researches have focused mainly on the effect of elevated temperature on the compressive strength of the GFRP square tubes. Limited research has focused on the tensile strength of GFRP coupons under elevated temperatures. Dynamic Mechanical Analyses (DMA) was performed to assess the viscoelastic behavior including the glass transition temperature of GFRP. Sixteen GFRP coupons were tested under elevated temperatures to investigate the tensile strength and the effect of elevated temperatures to the tensile strength of GFRP. The results of an experimental program performed on fifty GFRP square tubes with different designs in 1.83m at normal temperatures were discussed to investigate compression performance. Another experimental program was performed on 20 GFRP square tubes with different designs in 1.22m under elevated temperatures. The experiments results were discussed and showed that the compressive strength of GFRP material was influenced by several factors including the glass transition v temperature and the connection bolts. Failure modes under 25°C and 75°C were crushing and the failure modes with the temperatures above 75°C were not typical crushing due to the glass transition of GFRP. Sixteen GFRP square tubes with length of 0.61m were tested with the same experimental program under elevated temperatures as the control group. Twelve GFRP square tubes with the same size were subjected to cyclic loading under elevated temperatures to investigate the effect of the cyclic loading to the compression properties of GFRP material. According to the experimental results and the discussion, the stiffness was reduced by the cyclic loading. On the contrary, the influence of the cyclic loading was not obvious compared to the GFRP specimens subjected to normal displacement control loading. The higher temperature made the stiffness of GFRP more sensitive to the cyclic loading.