LiFeRCon
Period: from 01/01/2018 to 30/09/2021
Partners: Airbus (topic manager), AMADE (Coordinator), University of Porto, MSC e-Xstream
Project manager: Dr. Cristina Barris and Dr. Marta Baena
Contact:
cristina.barris@udg.edu marta.baena@udg.edu
Other AMADE people involved in project: Dr. Lluís Torres
Partners:
Coordinated Project with UPM (Dr. Ricardo Perera)
In collaboration with Universidade do Minho (Dr. José Sena-Cruz)
Funding by:
Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad y la Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI), with project reference: BIA2017-84975-C2-2-P
Rehabilitation and strengthening of infrastructures and existing buildings represents an effective action in order to extend their service life, and, hence, to reduce the environmental impact associated to raw materials consumption and associated procedures. Consequently, an increase in the economic efforts for rehabilitation and maintenance is expected to take place in the next years, in front of the budged addressed to new construction. This trend will also have a repercussion in the structural aspects, as it has been announced in the approach for the new fib Model Code 2020, which will include new and existing structures. For this reason, there is a need of taking advantage of the new emerging technologies with the purpose of mitigating deterioration and efficiently managing maintenance efforts on civil structures. In this sense, novel materials such as Fibre Reinforced Polymers (FRP) have appeared as new reinforcing materials and for strengthening of existing structures. These materials present an attractive combination of mechanical properties, ease of assembly and durability, in comparison with other traditional materials. As a result of their growing application, some code proposals and recommendations for the design of reinforced concrete (RC) structures reinforced or strengthened with FRP have already been published, and it is foreseen their introduction in the new modification of Eurocode 2.
The structural behaviour of concrete elements strengthened with FRP greatly depends on the bond behaviour of the joint concrete-FRP, in which an epoxy adhesive is generally used. The bond behaviour under static loading at ambient temperature has been extensively studied in the last years. However, concrete structures are often subjected to dynamic loading and harsh environmental conditions that may affect their durability and long-term performance.
The main objective of the project is to study the behaviour of concrete structures strengthened with FRP using the typical techniques of Externally Bonded Reinforcement (EBR) and Near Surface Mounted (NSM), under different environmental conditions (temperature and humidity) with time and with different loading conditions, in order to propose design criteria that allow enlarging their service life. The effects of those conditions will be evaluated under fatigue loading and at different strain rates. Bond and flexural tests will be performed in order to evaluate the effects on the load-deflection behaviour, mode of failure and residual bond capacity. The main parameters will be the type of strengthening (EBR, NSM), the type of FRP, the type of adhesive and the exposure to different temperature and moisture conditions, together with different loading types and conditions. Different structural health monitoring systems, such as fibre optic sensors (FBG) and piezoelectric sensors (PZT) will be used, so as to enhance the level of knowledge and safety of the strengthened structures with FRP. From the obtained experimental results, it is expected to develop bond laws that allow considering the aforementioned parameters and that can be implemented in numerical models. These models will help to reproduce the behaviour of concrete structures strengthened with FRP, which is an essential requirement to consider in design methods.
For more information, please contact info.amade@udg.edu
