Carbon Fiber–Reinforced Polymer Reinforcement for Rotational Behavior of Bolted Glulam Beam-to-Column Connections: Fid-Bau Portal

Carbon Fiber–Reinforced Polymer Reinforcement for Rotational Behavior of Bolted Glulam Beam-to-Column Connections

Song, Xiaobin / Ma, Yurong / Gu, Xianglin / Wang, Mingqian

This paper presents the results of an experimental study on the use of carbon fiber–reinforced polymer sheets as reinforcement for the rotational behavior of bolted glulam beam-to-column connections. Monotonic loading was applied on connection specimens to identify their stiffness, ductility, and maximum moment resistance values. Material property tests were conducted and used to provide an unbiased judgment of the reinforcing efficiency considering varied specimen qualities. Different sheet wrapping patterns and layers of sheets were examined, and the results were compared with each other and results from previous studies. It was found that carbon fiber–reinforced polymer sheets could improve the moment capacity of unreinforced connections by up to 59%, which is very close to the reinforcing ratio (65%) achieved by using locally cross-laminated glulam members. A linear relationship was found between the increased perpendicular-to-grain glulam tensile strength and the increased moment resistance by use of the reinforcing materials, and the moment resistance increase corresponding to a unit glulam tensile strength increase, designated as the reinforcing efficiency, from the internally wrapped carbon fiber–reinforced polymer sheets was higher than the other methods studied. The results of this study can be used as reference for reinforcement of existing glulam timber frame structures.