The Effect of Surface Treatment of Basalt FRP Bars on the Shear Capacity of Oneway High-Strength Concrete Slabs

Abstract

Corrosion is a common condition encountered by steel reinforcing bars which has a considerable negative impact on the structural integrity of concrete structures. Nowadays, applying anti-corrosive composite materials such as fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) bars as reinforcing bars instead of steel bars is a major area of interest among researchers. The current study presents an investigation on the influence of surface treatment of the basalt (B) FRP reinforcing bars on the shear strength ofone-way high-strength concrete slabs. Two types of BFRP bars were tested, one with a sand-coated surface and the other with a ribbed surface.The testing results showed that the ribbed BFRP bars resulted in a slightly higher shear strength than the slab reinforced with sand-coated bars. The ultimate shear capacity in the ribbed bars reinforced slab was recorded as 95.65 kN, whereas it was recorded as 90.08 kN in the sand-coated bars reinforced slab. Moreover, in comparison to the slab with sand-coated bars, the first flexural crack was delayedin the slab with ribbed bars.Also, reinforcing the one-way slab with ribbed BFRP bars has shown higher stiffness represented by lower midspan deflection at all loading stages compared to the sand-coated bars. As a result, this has induced lower stresses on the ribbed bars, which caused lower midspan strain values in the ribbed bars than the sand-coated bars.