Experimental study on the behaviour of concrete one way slabs reinforced with GFRP reinforcements under constant and variable amplitude repeated loadings

Non-metallic reinforcements (Glass Fibre Reinforced Polymer reinforcements - GFRP) are viable alternate to the conventional steel reinforcements owing to their excellent properties such as non-corrosive, nonconductive and nonmagnetic properties. This study focuses on the performance of GFRP reinforced concrete one way slabs under constant and variable amplitude fatigue and it is compared with conventionally reinforced concrete one way slabs. A total number of thirty nine one- way concrete slabs, out of which eleven are reinforced with conventional steel reinforcements and twenty eight are reinforced with Glass Fibre Reinforced Polymer (GFRP) reinforcements. Among the thirty nine slabs, sixteen are subjected to static loading, sixteen are subjected to constant amplitude fatigue loading and seven are subjected to variable amplitude fatigue loading. Finite element analysis is also carried out to study the effect of different parameters on the flexural capacity of one way slabs. Different parameters like thickness of slabs, reinforcement ratios, types of reinforcements and grades of concrete are considered. Based on this study, static load carrying capacities and fatigue performance of the conventional and GFRP reinforced concrete one way slabs are compared. A good agreement exists between the analytical and experimental results.