Post-Fire Characteristics of Concrete Beams Reinforced with Hybrid FRP Bars

One of the main concerns of experimental and numerical investigations regarding the behavior of fiber-reinforced polymer reinforced concrete (FRP-RC) members is their fire resistance to elevated temperatures and structural performance at and after fire exposure. However, the data currently available on the behavior of fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) reinforced members related to elevated temperatures are scarce, specifically relating to the strength capacity of beams after being subjected to elevated temperatures. This paper investigates the residual strength capacity of beams strengthened internally with various (FRP) reinforcement types after being subjected to high temperatures, reflecting the conditions of a fire. The testing was made for concrete beams reinforced with three different types of FRP bars: (i) basalt-FRP (BFRP), (ii) hybrid FRP with carbon and basalt fibers (HFRP) and (iii) nano-hybrid FRP (nHFRP), with modification of the epoxy matrix of the rebar. Tested beams were first loaded at 50% of their ultimate strength capacity, then unloaded before being heated in a furnace and allowed to cool, and finally reloaded flexurally until failure. The results show an atypical behavior observed for HFRP bars and nHFRP bars reinforced beams, where after a certain temperature threshold the deflection began to decrease. The authors suggest that this phenomenon is connected with the thermal expansion coefficient of the carbon fibers present in HFRP and nHFRP bars and therefore creep can appear in those fibers, which causes an effect of “prestressing” of the beams.