Ductility of timber beams strengthened using fiber reinforced polymer

Abstract

This research was conducted to investigate the ductility behavior of timber beams strengthened with CFRP (carbon fiber reinforced polymer) plates. The surface to be bonded was spiked by punching small holes of 2 mm in diameter with 10 mm spacing. The aim is to increase bonding capacity by having small studs. Five beams with the dimension of 100 mm × 200 mm × 3,000 mm were tested where one of the beams was used as control beam (unstrengthened). The remaining beams were strengthened with different configurations before tested to failure under four-point loading. The results showed that the ductility was increased as the percentage of CFRP increased. The ductility was dramatically improved where the highest ductility index based on deflection method was 2.2 where the percentage increase was 37.5%, whereas the highest ductility index based on energy method was 3.2 where the percentage increase was 88.2%. From this study, it was found that 0.3% is the optimum value of CFRP area to achieve maximum ductility index. Ductility index obtained from energy method gives higher values when compared to deflection method. All beams in this study did not fail due to peel off or debonding. It was also proved that the spikes that have been made at the wood surface were very effective for bonding.