CICE 2010 - The 5th International Conference on FRP Composites in Civil Engineering September 27-29, 2010, Beijing, China

Shear Buckling of GFRP Beam Webs

Behzad D. Manshadi, Anastasios P. Vassilopoulos & Thomas Keller (thomas.keller@epfl.ch) Composite Construction Laboratory (CCLab), Ecole Polytechnique F d rale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland

ABSTRACT Slender webs of glass fiber-reinforced polymer (GFRP) beams are sensitive to shear buckling. Shear buckling can bee seen as an in-plane biaxial compression-tension buckling problem. The transverse tensile load thereby delays the onset of buckling and increases the ultimate load. Thin-walled GFRP plates of two different fiber stacking sequences, [0/90]S and [90/0]S, were subjected to in-plane biaxial compression-tension loading. The buckling loads were almost duplicated by increasing the tensile load while the ultimate loads were increased by up to 20%. The fiber stacking sequence thereby had significant effects on buckling mode shape and buckling and ultimate loads. KEY WORDS

1 INTRODUCTION
FRP composite materials are increasingly applied in civil engineering. Structural components primarily used are beams and cellular slabs (Upadyay & Kalyanaraman 2003, Keller & Schollmayer 2004). In many cases webs of open or closed beam cross-sections are slender and therefore sensitive to shear buckling. Shear buckling thereby can be seen as an in-plane biaxial compressiontension buckling problem. The diagonal compression stress field is crossed by a transverse tension stress field, whose stresses increase with the out-of-plane deformation and, in this way, produce a stabilizing effect. Several analytical and numerical studies have been carried out on the buckling and post buckling of flat composite panels subjected to general loading conditions. However, most of them concern biaxial compression-compression buckling (Romeo & Frulla 1994, Kim & Hoa 1995). Only one study was found, which concerns the buckling behavior of composite panels subjected to in-plane biaxial compression-tension loading (Tuttle et al. 1999). In this work, the buckling loads increase with an increase of the transverse tensile loads. However, large discrepancies between experimental and numerical results are reported. In this paper, the results of an experimental investigation of the buckling and the post-buckling behavior of GFRP laminates subjected to in-plane biaxial compressiontension loading are presented. The influence of increasing transverse tension load on the buckling and post-buckling behavior is investigated. Panels with two different fiber architectures were used in order to evaluate the effect of different orthotropic stacking sequences.

Figure 1. Compression loads were applied horizontally and tension loads vertically.

Figure 1 Instron planar biaxial cruciform testing systems

EXPERIMENTAL SET-UP

An Instron planar biaxial cruciform testing system of 63 kN capacity in both axes directions was used, see

Composite panels of 350 350 mm2 and nominal thickness of 3.6 mm were prepared by hand-lay-up. Four layers of unidirectional E-glass fibers (0 : 960 g/m2, 90 : 50 g/m2) and polyester resin were used. Specimens with stacking sequences of [0/90]S and [90/0]S were cut from the panels with an aspect ratio of 1, as shown in Figure 2. To prevent interfering of grip motions during loading and to smoothen load introduction the corners were truncated. Nine linear strain gages were applied in the specimen axes in order to record the in-plane strains (see Figure 2). Gages (1)-(5) and (7)-(9) were on one side while gage (6) was on the opposite specimen side. Moreover, the out-of-plane displacement was recorded by using an LVDT transducer located on the back side at the center point (see Figure 2). The tensile load was first applied in vertical direction at a loading rate of 0.3 kN/s and then kept constant throughout the test. Compression was then applied in displacement control at a rate of 0.017 mm/s up to

L. Ye et al. (eds.), Advances in FRP Composites in Civil Engineering Tsinghua University Press, Beijing and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2011

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40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 -1.0 -0.5 0.0 Strain ( ) 0.5 1.0 gage (1) gage (2) gage (3) gage (4) gage (5) gage (6) gage (7) gage (8) gage (9)

Figure 4 Compression load vs. strain responses of [0/90]S specimen at 15 kN tensile load
40 35 Compression load (kN) 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 Maximum deflection (mm) 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 Transverse tension load (kN)

Figure 2 Specimen geometry in [mm] and instrumentation

3
3.1

EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
[0/90]S specimens

Independent of the applied tension load, an almost halfsine wave buckling mode shape was observed, as shown in Figure 3. Typical strain responses, at a tension load of 15 kN, are presented in Figure 4. Gages (3) and (6), on opposite sides, had the same compressive behavior up to the onset of buckling. Subsequently, gage (3) changed to tension while gage (6) continued measuring compressive strains. Gages (1) to (6) showed symmetric results in accordance with the observed mode shape. The effect of the tension load on the buckling and the post buckling behavior is shown in Figure 5. The curves move upwards with increasing tension load.

Figure 5 Compression load vs. maximum out-of-plane displacement responses of [0/90]S specimens at different tension loads

3.2

Compression load (kN)

specimen failure. Tensile loads were selected in 5 kN steps from 0 to 30 kN. Two specimens were tested for [0/90]S laminates at each load level while only one specimens was used for [90/0]S.

[90/0]S specimens

Figure 3 Buckling mode shape of a [0/90]S specimen

A half-sine wave buckling mode was observed at 0 kN tension load only. Applying tension loads let the mode shape change to a full-sine wave, as shown in Figure 6. Strain responses were again in accordance with the observed mode shape, as shown in Figure 7 for a 20 kN tension load. Gages (2) and (4) were on the concave and convex part of the two half-waves and, accordingly, showed tension and compression. Symmetry of the shape was confirmed by gages (1)-(3) and (4)-(6). The effect of transverse tension on the buckling load is illustrated in Figure 8, which shows the gage (2) responses. The reversal point of the strain curves, which normally is associated with the buckling load, is moving up by applying higher tensile loads.

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Figure 6 Buckling mode shape of a [90/0]S specimen

25

20 Compression load (kN)

15

10

gage (1) gage (2) gage (3) gage (4) gage (5) gage (6) -1.0 -0.5 0.0 Strain ( ) 0.5 1.0 1.5

0 -1.5

Figure 7 Compression load vs. strain responses of [90/0]S specimen at 20 kN tensile load
25

20 Compression load (kN)

15 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 Transverse tension load (kN) 0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 Strain ( ) 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7

10

0 -0.1

Figure 8 Comparison of gage (2) load-strain responses of [0/90]S specimens at different tension loads

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

In order to derive the buckling loads, the load vs. maximum out-of-plane displacement curves of [0/90]S specimens,

shown in Figure 5, were fitted with the numerical fitting method proposed by Fok (1984). This method was not applicable for specimens [90/0]S because center point out-of-plane displacements were almost zero due to the full-sin wave. The strain reversal method (Singer et al. 1998) was used in this case based on the load-strain responses shown in Figure 8. The resulting buckling loads as a function of the transverse tension loads are shown in Figure 9. Fitting curves were added to the experimental results. The buckling loads show an increasing trend at lower tension loads and approach a plateau for higher tension loads. An increase of almost 155% was observed for the [90/0]S specimens, while the buckling load of the [0/90]S specimens was almost duplicated. The pure shear buckling load, determined as the intersection point of the pure shear buckling line (corresponding to equal tension and compression loading) with the fitting curves in Figure 9 was 20.5 kN for [0/90]S specimens and 9.8 kN for [90/0]S specimens. The positive effect of the increasing transverse tension load on the ultimate compression loads was less pronounced in both cases, see Figure 10. Nevertheless, the ultimate compression loads increased up to 20% for [0/90]S specimens and 15% for [90/0]S specimens. Both, the increase of buckling and ultimate loads, confirmed the significant and increasing stabilizing effect provided by the increasing transverse tension load. Figures 9 and 10 demonstrate that the stacking sequence had a significant effect on the results. In the [0/90]S configuration, the fibers parallel to the compression axis were on the outer side in the cross-section, while they were in the center in the [90/0]S configuration. The bending stiffness along the compression axis was therefore much higher in the [0/90]S configuration than in the [90/0]S configuration. The resulting increased resistance against buckling in the [0/90]S configuration, caused by the effect of the fiber architecture, explains therefore the much higher buckling and ultimate compression loads of this configuration. In beam webs, therefore, the fiber architecture should be conceived in such a way that maximum bending stiffness is obtained in the direction of the compression diagonal. Similar effects of the fiber architecture were observed on the buckling mode shape. The [90/0]S configuration had the higher bending stiffness in tension direction. Applying furthermore stabilizing tension loads prevented out-of-plane deformations of the tension axis and led to the change of the buckling mode from a half-sine wave (at zero tension) to a full-sine wave when applying transverse tension.

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30 [0/90]S 25 20 15 10 5 0 -5 0 5 10 15 20 [90/0]S pure shear buckling line

Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on FRP Composites in Civil Engineering

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Buckling load (kN)

The authors would like to thank the Swiss Innovation Promotion Agency CTI for its financial support (Grant No. 9121.1 PFIW-IW), Scobalit Composites, Winterthur, Switzerland for fabricating the composite plates, and the EPFL LMAF Laboratory for use of the biaxial test machine.

REFERENCES
Fok, W.C. 1984. Evaluation of experimental data of plate buckling.
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J Struct Eng-ASCE 110(4):577-588. Keller, T. & Schollmayer, M. 2004. Plate bending behavior of a pultruded GFRP bridge deck system. Compos Struct 64: 285-295. Kim, Y.S. & Hoa, S.W. 1995. Bi-axial buckling behavior of composite rectangular plates. Compos Struct 31(4):247-252. Romeo, G. & Frulla, G. 1994. Nonlinear analysis of anisotropic plates with initial imperfections and various boundary conditions subjected to combined biaxial compression and shear loads. Int. J. Solids Struct 31(4):763-783. Singer, J., Arbocz, J. & Weller, T. 1998. Buckling Experiments: Experimental Methods in Buckling of Thin-Walled StructuresVolume I. New York: John Wiley & Sons Inc. Tuttle, M., Singhatanadgid, P. & Hinds, G. 1999. Buckling of composite panels subjected to biaxial loading. Exp Mech

Tension load (kN)

Figure 9 Buckling load vs. transverse tensile load

40 [0/90]S Ultimate compression load (kN) 35 30 25 20 15 10 -5 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 Tension load (kN) [90/0]S

39(3):191-201. Upadyay, A. & Kalyanaraman, V. 2003. Simplified analysis of FRP box-girders. Compos Struct 59(2):217-225.

Figure 10 Ultimate compression load vs. transverse tensile load