Ductility of Concrete Beams Reinforced with Both Fiber-Reinforced Polymer and Steel Tension Bars

This paper presents a numerical investigation of the mechanical performance and ductility of concrete beams reinforced by both fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) and steel tension reinforcement. Three-dimensional (3D) finite element (FE) analysis of beams with both FRP and steel reinforcement was conducted by first using ANSYS to verify the reliability of the FE analysis. The FE analysis can predict the mechanical behavior of the tested beams. To evaluate the ductility of the FRP-steel reinforced concrete (RC) beams considering various factors, such as the effects of the FRP on the steel reinforcement ratio, the location of the FRP reinforcement, the FRP type and the concrete compressive strength, on the mechanical performance of the beams, a parametric study was used to complement the FE analysis. Based on the parametric study, the conditions of the ratio of FRP to steel reinforcement, the location of the FRP reinforcement and the type of FRP reinforcement required to obtain reasonable ductility in practical use were presented.