Post-fire Tensile Strength of Glass Fiber-reinforced Polymer Rebars

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the effect of elevated temperatures on the mechanical behavior of glass fiber reinforced polymer (GFRP) rebars in terms of their tensile strength. To achieve this, GFRP rebars with diameters of 16, 20, and 25.4 mm were subjected to thermal processing at a constant heating rate of 20 °C/min, with target temperatures of 25, 100, 200, 300, and 400 °C. The results showed that the tensile strength of the GFRP rebars was higher than that at room temperature when subjected to combustion temperatures of 100 and 200 °C, but decreased significantly at 300 °C. Moreover, the tensile strength of the GFRP rebars decreased dramatically in a nonlinear manner at temperatures beyond 400 °C. It was also found that the tensile strength of the larger diameter rebar was marginally higher than that of the smaller diameter rebar for the tested sample size of GFRP rebars at a single temperature of combustion.