PSI - Issue 17

Haya H. Mhanna et al. / Procedia Structural Integrity 17 (2019) 214–221 Haya H. Mhanna et al. / Structural Integrity Procedia 00 (2019) 000 – 000

218

5

laminates to remove the air voids. Figure 3 shows specimen preparation and adopted strengthening procedure.

Fig. 3. Strengthening procedure. (a) surface preparation; (b) applying epoxy on beam’s surface; (c) impregnating carbon sheets with primer; (d) removing air voids using grooved rollers

3.4. Test Setup

All beams were loaded under one-point loading (three-point bending) using an Instron Universal Testing Machine (UTM) that has a capacity of 2000 kN, under a displacement rate of 2 mm per minute. Figure 4 shows a schematic of the loading test setup. In addition, six strain gauges were attached to each CFRP laminates as shown in Fig. 5 to monitor the axial strain in the laminates during loading. Moreover, the mid-span vertical displacement was monitored using an external Linear Variable Differential Transformer (LVDT) as shown in Fig. 5.

Fig. 4. Test setup

Fig. 5. Strain gauges on beam BSU

4. Results and Discussion

A total of six beams were tested under three-point bending. Beams CB, CBR1 and CBR2 were considered as control beams and used as benchmarks for beams BSU, WBR1, and WBR2, respectively. The failure modes of all the beams are presented in Fig. 6, and the load versus mid span deflection responses are shown in Fig. 7. In addition, the results in terms of ultimate load ( P u ), mid-span deflection at ultimate load ( δ u ), mid-span deflection at failure load ( δ f ), ultimate strain in the CFRP wraps ( ε frp ), percent increase of ultimate load ( P u ) over the control specimen of