A Study of Effectiveness of Fiber Reinforced Polymer (FRP) System on the Performance of Concrete Beams and Columns

Abstract

The durability of marine concrete structures has long been a concern of many countries, especially in the island country of Singapore, where many structures are constructed along coastal areas. Currently, the durability of concrete under marine conditions can be enhanced by the addition of admixtures, and using high grade concrete. The FRP system can also be used to increase the durability of the concrete structures under marine conditions, by preventing the ingress of chloride ions into the structures, thereby preventing the corrosion of the steel reinforcements. In addition, the FRP system has the additional function of increasing the strength of the structure. The FRP system, which composed of the epoxy developed and carbon fiber selected in our previous paper [7], was evaluated according to various standard testing methods to get the basic technical information of the FRP system. Concrete beams and columns were wrapped with the FRP system in different design and tested to verify the effectiveness of FPR wrapping. The results showed that the performance of concrete specimens wrapped with FRP system developed could be increased up to 6 times compared to control specimens without wrapping.