FLEXURAL BEHAVIOR OF TWO-WAY SOLID SLABS REINFORCED WITH GFRP BARS

This thesis presents an investigation of the flexural behavior of two-way solid slabs reinforced with GFRP bars. That study is done through experimental and Numerical works. The experimental work includes eight slab specimens, reinforced with GFRP bars in addition to a reference slab, reinforced with steel bars. All slabs have dimensions of 175X175 mm where the clear spans of all slab specimens are 135x135m. Marginal beams are built at the edges of the slabs with dimension of 200x200 mm. The beams are reinforced with steel bars. The specimens are divided into two groups (A, and B) with slab thicknesses of 60 and 70 mm. The slabs are loaded by a loading system which apply uniform loads on the slabs. The loads are applied till the failure of the slabs. The changing parameters are the slab thicknesses of 60 mm for group A and 70 mm for group B, and the reinforcement ratio of 0.53%, 1.33%, 1.58%, 2.31% for group A, and 0.58%, 0.77%, 0.79%, and 1.01% for group B while the control slab has thickness of 70 mm and reinforcement ratio of 0.79%. The measurement parameters are the loads, the corresponding displacements, the strains in the reinforcement bars, in addition to the cracks propagations. The study investigate the load-deflection relations, the load-strain relations in addition to the cracks propagation. Also, the ductility characteristics are evaluated though the displacement ductility factors of each specimen. The experimental results showed that using GFRP bars as reinforcement for the two-way concrete slabs instead of the traditional steel bars is feasible and reliable since they achieved almost similar results. By increasing the slab thickness from 60 mm to 700, the slab ultimate capacity is increased by 10% for slabs with the same reinforcement ratio (0.53%). It is found that to achieve the ultimate load and the serviceability deflation of the GFRP slabs you may need to increase the reinforcement ratios by 77% and 22% of the steel bar slabs. The tested labs achieved a displacement ductility factor of (2.11 to 3.8) while the control slabs has a factor of 2.11. Numerical investigations are done on the tested specimens using the ANSYS software. The results are almost similar to the experimental findings. In addition a parametric study is done on another 18 specimens investigated numerically only. The