Event Title
STR-891: FLEXURAL BEHAVIOUR OF THIN-WALLED FLAX FIBRE REINFORCED POLYMER BEAMS WITH FOAM CORES
Location
London
Event Website
http://www.csce2016.ca/
Description
There is a rapidly growing demand for more environmentally sustainable materials in the construction industry. Natural flax fibre reinforced polymers (FRPs) have potential applications as lightweight skins for utility poles, pedestrian bridge elements, and small wind turbine shafts but the structural behaviour of flax-FRP wrapped foam beams has yet to be investigated. Six beams with various internal foam density and fibre arrangements were constructed and tested. A control beam was made using one glass-FRP (one layer of longitudinal fibres, one transverse) while the remaining used flax-FRP. A fabrication technique for constructing the tubes was developed and presented here. An arrangement using 5 layers of longitudinal flax fibres and 3 hoop flax fibres gives similar strength to the glass-FRP control; 4 longitudinal and 3 hoop flax fibres is expected to give similar stiffness to the glass-FRP control. Flexural strength and stiffness was found to be proportional to the number of longitudinal layers. Increasing the amount of hoop layers shifted the failure mode from compression to tension controlled. Flax-FRP beams that failed in compression gave slightly more warning and higher deflections than those that failed in tension. The results show that flax-FRP skinned foam beams have potential applications in lightweight construction but further testing under environmental and cyclic loading is recommended before these tubes are used in practice.
Included in
STR-891: FLEXURAL BEHAVIOUR OF THIN-WALLED FLAX FIBRE REINFORCED POLYMER BEAMS WITH FOAM CORES
London
There is a rapidly growing demand for more environmentally sustainable materials in the construction industry. Natural flax fibre reinforced polymers (FRPs) have potential applications as lightweight skins for utility poles, pedestrian bridge elements, and small wind turbine shafts but the structural behaviour of flax-FRP wrapped foam beams has yet to be investigated. Six beams with various internal foam density and fibre arrangements were constructed and tested. A control beam was made using one glass-FRP (one layer of longitudinal fibres, one transverse) while the remaining used flax-FRP. A fabrication technique for constructing the tubes was developed and presented here. An arrangement using 5 layers of longitudinal flax fibres and 3 hoop flax fibres gives similar strength to the glass-FRP control; 4 longitudinal and 3 hoop flax fibres is expected to give similar stiffness to the glass-FRP control. Flexural strength and stiffness was found to be proportional to the number of longitudinal layers. Increasing the amount of hoop layers shifted the failure mode from compression to tension controlled. Flax-FRP beams that failed in compression gave slightly more warning and higher deflections than those that failed in tension. The results show that flax-FRP skinned foam beams have potential applications in lightweight construction but further testing under environmental and cyclic loading is recommended before these tubes are used in practice.
https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/csce2016/London/Structural/53
