Post-buckling shear capacity of steel plates with opening strengthened by fiber fabric: Fid-Bau Portal

Post-buckling shear capacity of steel plates with opening strengthened by fiber fabric

Zhao, Zhongwei / Jin, Zeyuan / Zhang, Zhaolong / Liang, Bingbei / Liu, Min

Abstract Shear capacity is one of the most important factors of steel plates and the steel plates with opening is widely adopted in engineering. This study investigates steel plates reinforced with fiber fabric. Opening shapes, positions, panel thicknesses, and material strengths, are considered to assess the effectiveness of fiber fabric in reinforcing steel plates. Two types of fibers, carbon fiber and basalt fiber, are employed. Specimens with various opening positions and shapes are meticulously designed. The study includes an analysis of how effectively fiber fabric improves shear capacity and examines the resulting failure modes. A comparison is made regarding the shear behavior of plates reinforced with different types of fiber fabrics. The study also explores how plate thickness influences the strengthening effect. The results indicate that the presence of fiber fabric does not enhance the shear capacity of steel plates without openings. Carbon fiber demonstrates a greater enhancement in shear capacity compared to basalt fiber. The use of fiber fabric and epoxy resin to reinforce thin steel plates shows limited improvement in shear capacity. A numerical model is proposed to simulate plates reinforced with fiber fabric, incorporating a nonlinear spring element to represent the behavior of epoxy resin.

Highlights • Experiment is performed to reveal the applicability of fiber fabric in strengthening steel plate. • The carbon fiber fabric and basalt fiber fabric are compared. • The numerical model of plates strengthened by fiber fabric is proposed.