Bearing Strength of Concrete with Carbon Fibre Reinforced Plastic (CFRP) Wrapping Axially Loaded through Circular Plate

Abstract

Bearing strength of concrete is strongly related to contact behaviour when the loaded bearing plate penetrate over limited area of concrete surface. The model of concrete bearing was examined using the three-dimensional (3D) nonlinear explicit finite element micro-model in the ABAQUS/Explicit. The contact interaction between the concrete surface and the steel bearing plate was modelled using Surface to Surface (S-to-S) contact model. For material nonlinearity, the Concrete Damage Plasticity Material Model (CDPM) was adopted to stimulate nonlinear behaviour of concrete. The main objective of this paper is to determine the effects of external reinforcement namely Carbon Fibre Reinforced Plastic (CFRP) wrapping in strengthening the bearing capacity of concrete blocks. The concrete block models are with three different bearing ratios of unloaded-loaded area 2, 4 and 6 were investigated. The FE results have shown that the structural performance of concrete bearing with CFRP external wrapped can increase the axial load capacity up to 30% than normal concrete block without CFRP wrapped. However, the effectiveness of CFRP wrapping is decreased as the concrete bearing ratio is increased. This indicates that the CFRP wrapping is effective for concrete blocks with high contact areas.