JOURNAL OF

COMPOSITE
M AT E R I A L S

Article

Tensile properties degradation of glass

fiber-reinforced polymer bars embedded
in concrete under severe laboratory and
field environmental conditions

Journal of Composite Materials

47(4) 393407
! The Author(s) 2012
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DOI: 10.1177/0021998312440473
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Tarek H Almusallam, Yousef A Al-Salloum, Saleh H Alsayed,

Sherif El-Gamal and Mohammed Aqel

Abstract
This paper presents the test results of an experimental study to investigate the durability of newly developed glass fiberreinforced polymer bars. The main objective of this study is to investigate any degradation in the tensile properties of the
glass fiber-reinforced polymer bars using accelerated aging methods. Glass fiber-reinforced polymer bars were embedded
in concrete prisms and exposed to several environmental conditions for 6, 12, and 18 months. The environments
included exposure to tap water and seawater at two temperatures (room temperature and 50 C), seawater dry/wet
cycles and alkaline solution at 50 C. In addition, two typical field conditions of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (Gulf area
and Riyadh area) were included. The performance of the glass fiber-reinforced polymer bars was evaluated by conducting
tensile tests on the bars extracted out from the concrete prisms after exposure to different conditions. In addition,
scanning electron microscope was used to investigate the degradation mechanism of the bars. After 18 months of
exposure, test results showed that both the tap water at 50 C and the alkaline solution at 50 C had the maximum
harmful effect on the tensile strength of glass fiber-reinforced polymer bars. The two field conditions showed almost no
degradation in the tensile properties of the tested bars.

Keywords
Durability, glass fiber-reinforced polymer bar, environmental degradation, tensile properties, concrete, scanning electron
microscope

Introduction
Conventional concrete structures reinforced with steel
are initially protected against corrosion by the alkalinity of the concrete. For many structures subjected to
aggressive environments, such as marine structures,
bridges, and parking garages, combinations of moisture, temperature, and chlorides reduce the alkalinity
of the concrete and result in the corrosion of the reinforcing and prestressing steel.1 The costs of repairs and
restoration in USA, Canada, and in the majority of the
European countries constitute a high percentage of
their total expenditure on infrastructure.24 This initiated the development of new technologies in order to
reduce the corrosion of steel reinforcement. Various
techniques such as epoxy-coated, galvanized steel
bars, and cathodic protection were employed; however,

any of the above conventional or new protection techniques could not completely eliminate the corrosion.
This failure directed the research toward the development of new corrosion-resistant materials for reinforcement such as ber-reinforced polymers (FRP).5,6
Due to their corrosion resistance, light-weight, and
high strength, FRPs have been widely used for civil
infrastructures throughout the world for the last 20
years. Among dierent types of FRPs, glass FRP
(GFRP) bars have drawn more attention in civil
Department of Civil Engineering, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi
Arabia
Corresponding author:
Yousef A Al-Salloum, Department of Civil Engineering, King Saud
University, P.O. Box 800, Riyadh 11421, Saudi Arabia.
Email: ysalloum@ksu.edu.sa

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Journal of Composite Materials 47(4)

engineering applications due to their low cost compared

to other types of FRPs.7,8 Durability of GFRP bars,
however, is not a straightforward subject; it tends to be
more complex than corrosion of steel reinforcement
because the durability of FRPs is related not only to
the strength of its constitutive materials (bers and
matrix) but also to the integrity of the interface between
these two components while aging. A deterioration of
this interface reduces the transfer of the loads between
bers and thus weakens the composite material.6
During the last two decades, several studies7,924
have been carried out on the parameters aecting durability and long-term behavior of FRP materials used in
civil engineering applications. These studies concluded
that most common types of GFRP bars appeared to
have some deterioration problems when subjected to
harsh environments and that moisture, alkalinity, and
temperature are the main parameters aecting the
durability of composite materials. The moisture
absorbed by the composites, combined with the temperature of exposure, induces stresses in the material
that damage the bers, the matrix, and their interface.
This gradually decreases the strength of the composite
material with time. The glass transition temperature
(Tg) of the matrix is also a key parameter, since it
marks a point beyond which signicant changes in the
properties of the matrix occur and considerable reduction of the mechanical properties takes place.6 Hence,
understanding the durability of GFRP bars as a function of glass bers and polymeric resin is essential to
design GFRP-reinforced concrete members and to
guarantee the typical infrastructure service life
(50100 years) and safety. Therefore, accelerated testing and evaluation programs are needed to evaluate the
expected service performance of concrete members
reinforced with these bars. In addition, calibration of
the accelerated test results with dierent natural
weathering data of in-service structures is needed to
establish safe service life of a structure.9
Several research studies were carried out to investigate the durability of GFRP bare bars under dierent
environmental conditions. Porter and Barnes25 conducted accelerated tests to determine the long-term tensile strength of three types of GFRP bars exposed to an
alkaline solution at a high temperature (60 C) for periods of 23 months. The tensile tests resulted in residual
strengths of 34%, 52%, and 71% compared to the original tensile strength. Chu and Karbhari26 and Chu
et al.27 conducted a study on the characterization and
modeling of the eects of moisture and alkalis on
E-glass/vinylester composite strips at dierent temperatures (23, 40, 60, and 80 C). The degradation levels in
the tensile strength ranged between 35% and 62% of
the initial strength. In a durability study conducted by
Gaona28 on GFRP bare bars, the test results showed

that tensile strength of the tested GFRP bars decreased

with time when the bars were in direct contact with
solutions simulating the interstitial solution of the concrete. Losses up to 24% were measured for bars conditioned in an alkaline solution with high pH value (12) at
a temperature of 35 C for 50 weeks.
Wang29 conducted 330 accelerated aging tests on different diameters of E-glass/vinylester reinforcing bars.
The samples were conditioned in alkaline solution (pH
12.612.8) and distilled water at 23, 40 and 60 C for
150 and 300 days. For all 150-day-aged samples, no
defects were observed in the ber, whereas matrix
cracks were observed in 300-day-aged samples.
Al-Zahrani4 investigated the degradation in the
residual tensile strength of three types of GFRP bars
in aggressive solutions. Bare bars were conditioned in
four solutions (alkaline, alkaline seawater, alkaline sabkha, and acidic) at three dierent temperatures for 312 months. The maximum reduction in
the tensile strength ranged between 27% and 71% in
alkaline environment and sabkha at 60 C. For thermal
variation and out-door, the reduction ranged between
5% and 21%.
Kim et al.24 conducted a short-term durability test
on two types of commercially available GFRP bare
bars (E-glass/vinylester) under four dierent environmental conditions (moisture, chloride, alkali, and
freezethaw cycling) for up to 132 days. In addition
to the room temperature (25 C), elevated temperatures
of 40 and 80 C were employed to accelerate the degradation of the GFRP bars. They concluded that, alkaline environmental condition had more inuence on the
degradation of tensile strength of GFRP bars than the
other inuencing factors.
Few research studies investigated the durability of
GFRP bars embedded in concrete. Table 1 shows a
summary of these studies and their test results.
Al-Zahrani4 subjected small concrete prism specimens
(10  10  100 cm) reinforced with single GFRP bar
embedded centrally to continuous wetting at 30 C in
potable water, seawater, sabkha solution, or out-door
for 624 months. He observed that the reductions in the
strength were much lower than in the case of bare bars.
This reduction ranged between 10% and 35% after
24 months of exposure. The researcher concluded
that this behavior could be attributed to the limited
availability of moisture around the bars and the lower
temperature of the condition solutions which was 30 C
for the embedded bars compared to 60 C for bare bars.
Another durability study on GFRP bars was carried
by Chen et al.30 Bare FRP bars and also bars embedded
in concrete were exposed to ve dierent solutions.
The results showed that signicant strength loss
resulted from the accelerated exposure of both bare
and embedded GFRP bars especially for solutions

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Almusallam et al.

395

Table 1. Previous test results of GFRP bars in concrete

Reference

Glass material/matrix

Bar diameter
(mm)

Al-Zahrani 20074

E-glass/modified vinylester

12

E-glass/vinylester

E-glass/polyurethane
(thermoplastic)

Alsayed et al. 20027

E-glass/urethane-modified
vinylester

9.5

Robert et al. 200931

E-glass/vinylester

12.7

Chen et al. 200730

E-glass/vinylester (type 2)

9.5

Almusallam and
Al-Salloum 200621

E-glass/modified vinylester

10

Dejke 200115

E-glass/vinylester

Conditioning
solution

Temp
( C)

Duration
(days)

Water
Seawater
Sabkha solution
Outdoor
Water
Seawater
Sabkha solution
Outdoor
Water
Seawater
Sabkha solution
Outdoor
Water (LACP)
Water (LACP)
Seawater (LACP)
Water (HACP)
Water (HACP)
Seawater (HACP)
Water

30

720

Varied
30

720

Varied
30

720

Water
Alkaline solution
(pH 12.7)
Tap water
Seawater
Water

Varied
50
65
50
50
65
50
23
40
50
20
60
40
40
20
40

180

240

90

480
480
582
245

Tensile
strength
loss
10
12
10
14
33
35
32
12
21
21
20
20
9
34
3
11
39
12
9
10
16
10
39
16
20
43
44

GFRP: glass fiber reinforced polymer; LACP low alkali cement (Na2O equivalent 0.2%) paste; HACP high alkali cement (Na2O equivalent 1.0%)
paste.

at 60 C. Continuous immersion resulted in greater degradation than exposure to wetting and drying cycles. In
contrast, freezing and thawing cycles combined with
solutions had little degradation eects on the GFRP
bars.
A recent study on the durability of GFRP bars
in moist concrete was conducted by Robert et al.31
Sand-coated GFRP bars with a nominal diameter of
12.7 mm were embedded in concrete and exposed to
tap water at 23, 40, and 50 C for periods of 60240
days. The tensile test results showed that at 40 and
50 C, the decrease of the tensile strength was 10%
and 16%, respectively, of the original tensile strength
after 240 days of exposure. In a eld study by Mufti
et al.,32 concrete cores were taken from ve in-service
concrete bridge structures of 68 years age across

Canada, reinforced with GFRP bars. On the basis on

microscopic and chemical analysis, they concluded that
the concerns about the durability of GFRP in alkaline
concrete, based on simulated laboratory studies in alkaline solutions, are unfounded.
The abovementioned studies showed wide and signicant variations in the strength reduction due to environmental exposure. In addition, most of the studies
have been carried out in USA, Canada, Japan, and
some of the European countries. Unfortunately, the climate in all those countries is relatively temperate and
does not resemble the local environment of hot countries such as Middle East in general and the Arabian
Gulf in particular where GFRP bars are extensively
used. In addition, many of the previous studies have
been carried out on the old generations of FRP bars.

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Journal of Composite Materials 47(4)

The manufacturers of GFRP are now claiming that

they have produced new types of GFRP bars that
have greater resistance to alkaline and to other environmental conditions.22 Therefore, before prescribing the
new materials to practitioners, there is an essential need
to evaluate the long-term performance of the newly
developed GFRP bars when subjected to dierent environmental and loading conditions.
This study aims to investigate the tensile properties
of new generations of GFRP bars under accelerated
laboratory environmental conditions as well as actual
eld conditions. The laboratory environments include
exposure to ordinary tap water and seawater at two
dierent temperatures. They also included exposure to
seawater dry/wet and alkaline solution at high temperature. The eld conditions include the hot weather eld
conditions of the Middle East, the Arabian Gulf area in
particular. This is represented in this study by the
Central Province (hot-dry) and Eastern Province (hothumid) of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Research significance
Although a number of durability studies on FRP bars
have been reported by various researchers, no general
conclusions are possible as researchers used dierent
testing procedures and conditions. In some cases,
even conicting results have been reported. This study
investigates the performance of newly developed GFRP
bars when subjected to several accelerated aging tests in
the laboratory (simulating the highly aggressive environments). In addition, it investigates the performance
of the bars in two actual service (eld) conditions. In
this study, GFRP bars embedded in concrete are tested
to simulate the real conditions of concrete structures.
The results of this investigation will provide a certain
condence level in using the new GFRP bars in concrete structures taking into account the long-term
behavior of these bars in hot weather countries. It
also allows for a direct comparison between the performance in laboratory and the real-eld conditions.

Experimental program
The experimental program of this study includes two
phases. The rst phase investigates the short-term
mechanical properties of four types of GFRP bars
available in the market to select the best type to be
used in the second phase. The second phase investigates
the durability of the selected type of the GFRP bars.

Phase-1: short-term mechanical properties

The properties of composite materials are dependent
on the individual component properties, the

manufacturing technique, and the quality control of

the production process. Any variations in the characteristics of these three items will produce composite
materials with variable short-term mechanical properties. Durability study cannot be conducted using materials with intolerable variations in short-term
mechanical properties. Such variation will make the
results of the durability study meaningless. Therefore,
before commencing the durability tests, tensile tests
were carried out to identify the short-term mechanical
properties of the available GFRP bars. Four dierent
types of E-glass/vinylester GFRP bars were procured
from three dierent suppliers.
All the GFRP bars were subjected to the screening
test to determine their properties. GFRP bars that
scored the highest stable results were used for the durability study. Tensile test was used to identify the suitable bars. Information collected from this test includes
tensile strength, tensile modulus of elasticity, and strain
at failure. Ten GFRP bar specimens of each type were
used in the screening tensile tests. The tensile tests were
carried out according to the ASTM D7205.33 All the
specimens were tested up to failure. The average standard deviation (SD), and coecient of variation (COV)
of the tensile test results for all the tested specimens are
given in Table 2. It is observed from Table 2 that
GFRP bars type I are the weakest with lowest tensile
strength and modulus of elasticity. The modulus of
elasticity of remaining three types is almost same but
the tensile strength of bars type II is the highest. The
fracture strain of type II bars is also high, which is
primarily due to its relatively higher tensile strength.
The test results of type II bars also show minimum
scatter in test results thus indicating their relatively
promising quality of manufacturing. It is due to these
reasons that the GFRP bars type II were selected to be
used in the durability phase of this investigation. The
selected bars were 12 mm diameter (area 113 mm2)
with special surface prole of regular ribs (Figure 1)
to enhance bond and force transfer between bars and
concrete. The bars were made of continuous longitudinal bers impregnated in a thermosetting vinylester
resin with a ber content of 83%.

Phase 2: durability of GFRP bars

This second phase of the study investigates the eect of
dierent environmental conditions (control, laboratory, and eld) on the tensile properties of the selected
type of GFRP bars. To be closer to real-eld conditions
where the bars are embedded in concrete, the GFRP
bars used in this study were also embedded in concrete
prisms before aging under dierent environmental conditions. For the test specimens, concrete was rst cast

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397

Table 2. Screening tensile test results of different types of GFRP barsa

FRP samples
Type I

Type II

Type III

Type IV

Average
Standard deviation
Coefficient of variation
Average
Standard deviation
Coefficient of variation
Average
Standard deviation
Coefficient of variation
Average
Standard deviation
Coefficient of variation

(%)

(%)

(%)

(%)

Peak stress
(MPa)

Fracture strain
(mm/mm)

Modulus of
elasticity (GPa)

432
59.2
13.68
1478
29.9
2.03
838
48.9
5.84
611
66.8
10.93

0.0104
0.0016
15.76
0.0245
0.0005
2.15
0.01
0.0008
5.91
0.0097
0.0016
15.93

41.9
1.56
3.71
60.4
1.69
2.79
59.9
2.45
4.08
63.3
4.44
7.01

FRP: fiber reinforced polymer; GFRP: glass FRP.

a
Values indicating minimum scatter are shown in bold.

Figure 1. GFRP bars used in this study.

GFRP: glass fiber reinforced polymer.

and cured under normal conditions then the specimens

were transferred to the dierent environmental conditions until the day of testing.

Test specimens. The durability study presented in this

paper focuses on the sole eect of dierent environmental conditions on test specimens without applying any
stress on the GFRP bars. Figure 2 shows a schematic
drawing and a photo of the test specimens. For these
specimens, GFRP bars were centrally embedded in
cement mortar prisms (50  50  500 mm). The
cement mortar was prepared using 1:3 mix proportion
of ordinary Portland cement and regular coarse sand.
Both ends of the GFRP bars were protected against
environmental conditions using a plastic tape. These
ends were used later for the anchorage of the bars
before testing. The specimens were cast in wooden
molds. After demolding, specimens were cured using
wet burlaps for a period of 28 days.

Environmental conditions. The specimens were subjected

to nine environmental conditions for 6, 12, and 18
months. The environments included exposure to ordinary tap water and seawater at two temperatures (room
and 50 C). They also included exposure to seawater
dry/wet and alkaline solution at 50 C. Seawater was
brought from the Arabian Gulf-Eastern Province
of Saudi Arabia. Alkaline solution was prepared
using calcium hydroxide, potassium hydroxide and
sodium hydroxide (1.185 g of Ca(OH)2 9.0 g of
NaOH 42.0 g of KOH per 10 l of water). The environments also included two typical eld conditions of
the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (Riyadh area and Gulf
area). Table 3 summarizes the test program of the durability study. The test program was divided into three
main categories as follows:
Unconditioned specimens (control specimens).
Specimens of this group, LE, were exposed to controlled
laboratory environment (temperature 23  2 C) as

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Journal of Composite Materials 47(4)

50

500 mm

250 mm

250 mm

Figure 2. Specimens exposed to lab environment (LE).

Table 3. Program of the durability study (control, laboratory, and field)

Specimens

Environment

Temp. ( C)

Nomenclature

Control
Lab conditioned specimens

Unconditioned lab
Tap water (immersed)

room
room
50
room
50
50
50
Field
Field

LE
TWR
TW50
SWR
SW50
SW50DW
ALK50
GF
RF

Seawater (immersed)

Field specimens

Seawater (dry/wet)
Alkaline (immersed)
Gulf area (hot humid)
Riyadh area (hot dry)
Subtotal
No. of exposure periods (6, 12, 18 months)
Total no. of specimens

No. of
specimens
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
45
3
135

ALK50: alkaline solution at 50 C; LE: lab environment; SEM: scanning electron microscope; TWR: tap water at ambient; TW50: tap
water at 50 C.

shown in Figure 2. Similar to the specimens in other

conditions, after 6, 12, and 18 months of exposure,
bars were extracted out of the specimens and tested in
tension. The great care was observed during the process
of extraction of bar for making sure that the bar is not
damaged. A small hammer was used for gently removing
the cement mortar. Test results of this group were used
as reference results for specimens under all other
conditions.
Specimens under dierent environmental conditions:
The specimens of this group were exposed to dierent
environmental conditions (at normal room temperature
or at 50 C) by either immersion into dierent types of

liquids or exposure to some specied conditions.

Similar to the unconditioned specimens, the conditioned specimens were tested in tension after being
exposed to the dierent conditions for 6, 12, and 18
months. The eects of each environmental condition
on the tensile strength of the bars were determined by
comparing the test results of this group with those of
the counterpart control specimens, LE specimens. The
environmental conditions considered in this group of
testing were as follows:
. Immersion in tap water at ambient and 50 C (TWR
and TW50 specimens).

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Almusallam et al.

399

. Immersion in seawater at ambient and 50 C (SWR

and SW50 specimens).
. Wet/dry cycles in seawater at 50 C (SW50DW
specimens).
. Immersion in alkaline solution (pH 12.513) at 50 C
(ALK50 specimens).
Specimens under eld conditions: Two eld conditions were considered. A set of specimens, RF, was
exposed to Riyadh hot-dry eld conditions representing
hot-dry arid land of the Middle East. A second set, JF,
was exposed to the Eastern coast of the Kingdom of
Saudi Arabia (Jubail city), which represents the hothumid environment of the Middle East. It should be
mentioned that the temperature are almost similar for
both eld conditions. Monthly average temperature
ranges between 9 and 45 C with annual average high
and low temperatures of 33 and 19 C, respectively.
However, the relative humidity is dierent. The
annual average relative humidity in Riyadh and
Jubail areas is about 26% and 52%, respectively.34
Tensile tests. All bars were tested in tension according
to the ASTM D720533 and the ACI 440.3R-04 B2
test method.35 Each specimen was instrumented with
a Linear Variable Dierential Transformer (LVDT)
to capture the elongation during testing. The total
length of bar was 1.0 m (Figure 2). After the extraction
of bar from cement mortar prism, 300-mm-long grips
of pipes were made; thus the test length of the specimen
between the grips was 400 mm. The gauge length for the
measurement of strain was 50 mm. The tests were carried out using an INSTRON testing machine and the
load was increased until failure (Figure 3). For each
tensile test, the specimen was mounted on the press
with the steel pipe anchors gripped by the wedges of
the upper and the lower jaw of the machine. The rate of
loading ranged between 250 and 300 MPa/min. The
applied load and bar elongation were recorded during
the test using a data acquisition system monitored by a
computer.
Microstructural analysis. Scanning electron microscope
(SEM) was used to investigate the phenomena of degradation occurring during aging. The outer surface
and the cross-sections of the GFRP bars in ALK50
and TW50 environments after 18 months of exposure were examined using the SEM technique and compared to those of the control specimens in the lab
environment.

Tensile tests results and discussion

The stressstrain curves for both unconditioned and
conditioned specimens were almost linear up to failure.

Figure 3. One GFRP specimen during tensile testing.

GFRP: glass fiber reinforced polymer.

All test specimens showed ber rupture in the test

length region. Table 4 summarizes the tensile test
results of all tested bars. It can be noticed that the
specimens in the controled lab environment, LE, did
not show any degradation in the tensile strengths with
age of exposure compared to the results obtained from
Phase I (Table 2). Therefore, the results reported in
Table 2 were used as a reference for all other test
specimens.

Tensile strength
Figure 4 shows the tensile strength retention of the conditioned specimens as a function of exposure time and
environmental conditions. In Figure 4, the tensile
strength of the conditioned specimen is divided by
that of the unconditioned specimen in the controlled
lap environment, LE, and the corresponding value is
denoted as the retention ratio in percent.
For the TWR specimens, most of the reduction in
the tensile strength occurred after the rst 6 months of
exposure. After 12 and 18 months of exposure, almost
no additional reductions in the tensile strength were
recorded. The residual strengths were about 95%,
94%, and 94% (reduction by 5.3%, 5.9%, and 6%)
after 6, 12, and 18 months of exposure, respectively.
Figure 5 shows a comparison between the tensile
strength retention of the TWR specimens compared

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Journal of Composite Materials 47(4)

Table 4. Tensile test resultsa

Strength (MPa)
Exposure period
Environment
6 months

12 months

18 months

LE
TWR
TW50
SWR
SW50
SW50DW
ALK50
RF
JF
LE
TWR
TW50
SWR
SW50
SW50DW
ALK50
RF
JF
LE
TWR
TW50
SWR
SW50
SW50DW
ALK50
RF
JF

Modulus of elasticity (GPa)

Fracture strain (%)

Average

SD

CV (%)

Average

SD

CV (%)

Average

SD

CV (%)

1474
1397
1229
1393
1269
1371
1296
1464
1454
1474
1388
1158
1349
1300
1370
1211
1459
1450
1468
1379
1123
1267
1238
1331
1149
1450
1443

16.2
11.4
23.2
72.6
5.58
22.2
22.3
21.6
65.6
12.5
26.3
17.3
4.36
11.2
22.3
29.3
33.2
21.6
23.2
49.3
32.1
25.5
39.8
18.8
49.2
8.80
28.0

1.10
0.82
1.88
5.21
0.44
1.62
1.72
1.47
4.51
0.85
1.89
1.49
0.32
0.86
1.63
2.42
2.27
1.49
1.58
3.58
2.85
2.01
3.21
1.41
4.28
0.61
1.94

61.4
60.2
57.2
58.4
57.0
59.6
59.3
60.2
57.7
60.7
57.5
56.8
57.5
57.4
57.9
56.4
57.8
59.8
61.6
61.0
56.2
55.3
58.1
61.6
55.9
60.5
57.1

0.2
0.1
3.5
1.3
0.7
1.7
2.3
1.4
0.4
1.1
3.2
2.4
3.1
0.3
1.5
0.3
2.1
2.5
0.9
2.0
0.5
1.6
0.6
0.8
1.5
1.6
1.3

0.37
0.16
6.05
2.22
1.14
2.81
3.80
2.24
0.62
1.76
5.52
4.29
5.34
0.53
2.57
0.51
3.62
4.14
1.50
3.20
0.80
3.00
1.00
1.30
2.70
2.70
2.30

2.40
2.30
2.16
2.38
2.23
2.30
2.29
2.41
2.56
2.43
2.41
2.04
2.35
2.26
2.37
2.15
2.53
2.43
2.38
2.23
2.00
2.29
2.16
2.15
2.02
2.40
2.53

0.040
0.046
0.146
0.080
0.018
0.114
0.049
0.061
0.097
0.049
0.130
0.030
0.164
0.035
0.058
0.213
0.085
0.194
0.066
0.046
0.048
0.023
0.056
0.060
0.084
0.078
0.040

1.65
1.99
6.78
3.36
0.79
4.96
2.15
2.51
3.78
2.04
5.37
1.45
6.98
1.55
2.46
6.90
3.37
8.00
2.76
2.05
2.40
0.98
2.59
2.78
4.16
3.25
1.58

ALK50: alkaline solution at 50 C; CV coefficient of variation (%); LE: lab environment; SD: standard deviation; SEM: scanning electron microscope;
TWR: tap water at ambient; TW50: tap water at 50 C.
a
Highest value of CV for each property is written in bold.

12 Months

18 Months
99
98
98

99
99
99

93
93
91

86
88
84

88
82
78

80

94
92
86

83
79
76

100

95
94
94

Residual Tensile Strength (%)

6 Months
120

60
40
20
0
TWR

TW50

SWR

SW50
SW50DW
Environment

ALK50

Figure 4. Residual tensile strength of tested bar after exposure.

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RF

JF

Almusallam et al.

401

Residual Tensile Strength (%)

120

Water (room temperature)

Al-Zahrani 2007 (25C)

(Type1)

100

Al-Zahrani 2007 (25C)

(Type2)

80

Al-Zahrani 2007 (25C)

(Type3)

60

Alsayed 2002 (23C)

Dejke 2001 (20C)

40
Chen et al 2007 (20C)

20
Current Study (23C)

0
0

200

400

600

800

Exposure Period (Days)

Figure 5. Residual tensile strength of concrete-covered GFRP bars exposed to water at room temperature.
GFRP: glass fiber reinforced polymer.

to other GFRP bars in the literature exposed to a similar condition. It may be observed from Table 1 that
there were two types of cement paste used by Alsayed
et al.7 namely, low alkali cement (Na2O equivalent 0.2%) and high alkali cement (Na2O equivalent 1.0%) paste. The low alkali cement being the
regular cement used in most of the studies including
the current study, only the test results of low alkali
cement paste of Alsayed et al.7 are considered for comparison in Figure 5 and in subsequent comparisons. It
can be noticed that the GFRP bars tested in this study
show higher residual strengths compared to most of the
GFRP bars in the literature, which are plotted in
Figure 5. The test results of GFRP bars type 1 used
by Al-Zahrani4 show similar trend as observed in the
present study but the results of type 2, which is the one
used in the present investigation show low residual
strength. One of the predominant factors that may
inuence the test results is the procedure of extraction
of bars from concrete, which was better controlled in
the present investigation. This is also evident from the
low values of SD and coecient of variation in the
present study. The concrete cover in the present study
was 19 mm. The cover in one of the earlier studies7 was
slightly less at 15 mm whereas in another study4 it was
as great as 44 mm. Despite large cover in experiments of
Al-Zahrani,4 which provided more protection of bar,
the loss of tensile strength was more than the present
study.
For the TW50 specimens, higher reductions in the
tensile strength were recorded. After 6 months of exposure, the strength loss was about 16.7%. After 12 and
18 months of exposure, this strength loss increased to
21.4% and 23.5%, respectively. This indicates that
increasing the temperature to 50 C increased the diusion rate of water and harmful ions into the bars, which
resulted in a faster degradation in the resin and glass

bers leading to the signicant decrease in the tensile

strength with time, which is also conrmed by the
microscopic examination of bar discussed latter.
A comparison between the TW50 specimens and
other GFRP bars exposed to hot water (4065 C) in
the literature is presented in Figure 6. It can be noticed
that the current results are comparable to most of the
results in the literature. As expected, the results in the
literature at 60 and 65 C showed higher reductions in
the tensile strength.7,30
For the specimens in seawater at room temperature,
SWR, it can be noticed that the reduction in the tensile
strength increased gradually with time. It was about
6%, 8%, and 14%, respectively, after 6, 12, and 18
months of exposure, which is slightly higher than the
reductions in the TWR environment. Increasing the
temperature to 50 C, SW50, resulted in additional
reduction in the tensile strength after 6 months of exposure. This reduction, however, did not increase with
time. After 6, 12, and 18 months, the strength loss
was about 14.0,% 11.8%, and 15.7%, respectively.
Figure 7 shows a comparison between the tensile
strength retention of the SWR and SW50 specimens
and other GFRP bars in the literature exposed to seawater. Again, it can be seen that the GFRP bars considered in this study have comparable or better residual
tensile strengths compared to most of the GFRP bars
reported in the literature, which is due to the reason
stated above.
For the specimens in dry/wet seawater at 50 C,
SW50DW, the recorded tensile strengths were greater
than those obtained in the SW50 specimens, which may
be due to the fact that SW50DW specimens were
exposed to wet condition for nearly 50% duration as
compared to SW50 specimens because of alternate
drying and wetting. This also indicates that the alternating dry/wet condition has no eect on the tensile

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402

Journal of Composite Materials 47(4)

Residual Tensile Strength (%)

120

Almusallam and AlSalloum 2006 (40C)

Hot Water (40 to 65C)

Chen et al 2007 (60C)

100

Mathieu et al. 2009

(40C)

80

Mathieu et al. 2009

(50C)

60

Alsayed 2002 (50C)

40

Alsayed 2002 (65C)

Dejke 2001 (40C)

20

Current Study (50C)

0
0

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

Exposure Period (Days)

Figure 6. Residual tensile strength of concrete-covered GFRP bars exposed to hot water.
GFRP: glass fiber reinforced polymer.

Figure 7. Residual tensile strength of concrete-covered GFRP bars exposed to seawater. GFRP: glass fiber reinforced polymer.

strength of the tested GFRP bars, which is in agreement with the results obtained by Chen et al.30
It can be also noticed, for both SW50 and SW50DW
conditions, that the tensile strengths were almost stable
with time. The tensile strengths after 12 and 18 months
of exposure were almost similar to those obtained after
6 months. This may be attributed to the formation of a
very thin layer of salt on the concrete surface, especially
at higher temperature, which decreases the diusion
rate of the solution into the bars. This was not recorded
in the TW50 specimens.
For the specimens in alkaline solution at 50 C,
ALK50, a signicant reduction in the tensile strength
was recorded, which increased with the passage of time,
which is primarily due to the damage to the resin as
observed in the microscopic examination. After 6, 12,
and 18 months of exposure, the decrease was 12.1%,
17.8%, and 21.7%, respectively. These reductions were

close to those obtained in the TW50 specimens. This

indicates that, for the GFRP bars embedded in concrete, the eect of tap water was almost similar to the
eect of alkaline environment. Thus, the alkaline environment as high as 12.5 pH has no eect on the tensile
strength of GFRP bars. This could be attributed to the
concrete around the GFRP bars. It is well known that
the internal concrete environment is alkaline with pH
between 10.5 and 13, depending on the design mixture
of the concrete and type of cement used. The alkalinity
of concrete has been observed to have almost no eect
on the tensile strength of GFRP bars, as observed from
the test results of control specimen (Table 4), which is
also conrmed by earlier studies on bond behavior.36
As the alkalinity of concrete is not aecting the GFRP
bars, thus the alkaline solution, ALK50, whose alkalinity is also in the range of that of concrete, is also not
expected to aect the GFRP bars.

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Almusallam et al.

403
12 Months

18 Months

98
93

94

98
95
98

97

93
91

97
95
100

95
94

93

90

95
95

91

93

93

95
99

98

100

100
100

120
100

Residual Tensile Strength (%)

6 Months

80
60
40
20
0
LE (control)

TWR

TW50

SWR

SW50

SW50DW

ALK50

RF

JF

Environment

Figure 8. Residual tensile modulus for different exposures.

107

104

101

100
85

95
89

98
90

96

93
90

93

96

97

84

90
84

93

99

99

96

Residual Tensile Strength (%)

100

106

18 Months

12 Months

100

6 Months

120

80
60
40
20
0
TWR

TW50

SWR

SW50

SW50DW

ALK50

RF

JF

Environment

Figure 9. Residual tensile strain at failure for different exposures.

For the specimens in the two eld conditions:

Riyadh eld condition, RF, and Gulf eld condition
(Jubail), JF, almost no reduction in the tensile strength
(1%2%) was recorded even after 18 months. The temperature conditions for the two elds being almost
same and the temperature seldom increasing beyond
50 C, the humidity is the only factor that dierentiates
one environment from the other. Thus, the humdity of
gulf region of Jubail has not aected the GFRP bars
embedded in concrete. This indicates that the used
accelerated laboratory environments were too harsh
compared to the real-eld conditions.

Youngs modulus
Figure 8 shows the retention of tensile modulus after 6,
12, and 18 months in dierent exposures. It can be
noticed that the environmental conditions did not

have signicant inuence on the elastic modulus of

GFRP rods. For all environments, a slight decrease
rangeing between 0% and 10% was observed. This
may be due to the fact that the modulus of elasticity
is measured for low stress values and in this range of
stress, the bers were intact in the resin, which had only
slightly degraded under the exposure of some of the
environmnts. Whereas the degradation of resin, however small, had signicant eect on the tensile strength
of GFRP bars because of the delamination occuring
during relatively early loading stage. These results are
in agreement with the results reported by dierent
researchers.4,6,24,31,35,37 Furthermore, Correia38 concluded that this behavior is due to the fact that tensile
modulus of GFRPs is only aected by temperatures
approaching polymer glass transition temperature that
is well above 50 C the temperature of exposure considered in the present study.

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404

Journal of Composite Materials 47(4)

Figure 10. SEM micrographs of the outer surface of the bars in LE, ALK50, and TW50 environments. (a)LE (b) ALK50 (c) TW50
ALK50: alkaline solution at 50 C; LE: lab environment; SEM: scanning electron microscope; TW50: tap water at 50 C.

Figure 11. SEM micrographs of the cross sections of the bars in LE, ALK50, and TW50 environments. (a)LE (b) ALK50 (c) TW50
ALK50: alkaline solution at 50 C; LE: lab environment; SEM: scanning electron microscope; TW50: tap water at 50 C.

Strain at failure
Figure 9 shows the retention of tensile strain at failure
after 6, 12, and 18 months in dierent exposures. It can
be noticed that the retention of tensile strains at failure
presents a similar pattern to that of the tensile strength.
For the specimens in the tap water at room temperature, Riyadh eld condition, and Gulf eld condition,
almost no decrease in the strain at failure was recorded

after 18 months of exposure. After the 18 months of

exposure, the specimens in the seawater solution at
room temperature and at 50 C show a decrease of
about 4% and 10%, respectively. The reduction was
about 10% for the specimens in the wet and dry seawater exposure at 50 C. After 18 months of exposures,
the specimens in the TW50 and ALK50 environment
show a loss of about 16% and 15%, respectively. The
fracture of GFRP bars occur after delamination of

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Almusallam et al.

405

bers and thus the degradation of resin had almost

insignicant eect on the fracture strain.

Microstructural analysis results

Figures 10 and 11 show the SEM micrographs of the
outer surface and the cross sections, respectively, of the
bars in LE, ALK50, and TW50 environments at dierent magnications. Figure 10 shows that the surface of
the LE specimens was not aected. In contrast, the
outer surface of the ALK50 and TW50 specimens was
signicantly deteriorated after 18 months of exposure.
It can be noticed that the matrix layer at the surface
that covers and protects the glass bers was lost in some
areas, which allows for fast diusion of water and alkali
ions into the bars.
In addition, Figure 11 shows that the matrix around
the glass bers in both the ALK50 and TW50 specimens were deteriorated. Many gaps were observed
between bers and at berresin interfaces, which
aected the bond between glass bers and vinylester
resin; consequently aected the tensile properties of
the GFRP bars at failure. The damage to the resin
leads to the non-uniform distribution of load among
bers, which thus fail progressively leading to lower
tensile strength. There were also few cracks in the
glass bers as shown in Figure 10(c) at 2000. At
lower load levels, the glass bers in the deteriorated
area withstood the applied load resulting in slight
reductions in the tensile modulus of the GFRP bars
as observed from the tensile test results (reductions of
only 0%10% in the tensile modulus). However, at
higher load levels close to failure, these bers were
the weak point in the GFRP bars and failed resulting
in reductions in the tensile strength and fracture strains
as observed from the test results.

Conclusions
This study is a part of an ongoing durability research
program on FRP reinforcing bars for concrete structures. From the test results presented in this paper, the
following specic conclusions can be drawn.
1. After 18 months of exposure, the specimens in the
controlled lab environment and in the two harsh
eld conditions show almost no degradation in the
tensile properties of the GFRP bars.
2. Increasing the temperature of the tap water solution
signicantly increased the degradation rate in the
tensile strength of the GFRP bars, which got
increased from 6% at room temperature to 23.5%
at 50 C after 18 months of exposure.
3. The exposure to seawater at room temperature
showed a decrease in the tensile strength of 13.7%

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

after 18 months of exposure. Increasing the temperature to 50 C, caused 14% reduction after 6 months
of exposures but almost no additional increase
beyond 6 months.
The alternate wet/dry cycles in seawater showed less
harmful eect on the tensile strength of GFRP bars,
which could be related to the absence of humidity
during the dry stage that results in less diusion of
the solution into the bars.
For exposure to alkaline environment at 50 C, a
gradual decrease in the tensile strength was recorded
with time and a loss of 21.7% was observed after 18
months of exposure.
For all tested specimens, the tensile modulus was not
signicantly aected even after 18 months in dierent exposures. These results are in agreement with
the results reported by several researchers.
The strains at failure, showed a similar pattern to
that of the tensile strength. The maximum decrease
in the strain at failure was recorded in the alkaline
and tap water environment at 50 C.
The SEM micrographs show that the matrix around
the glass bers in both alkaline and tap water environment at 50 C were signicantly deteriorated.
However, there was almost no deterioration in the
glass bers. This explains the test results where signicant losses were recorded in the tensile strength.

It is reasonable to assume that alkaline and tap

water environments at 50 C are too harsh compared
to the two real-eld conditions that did not cause any
degradation in the tensile properties of the tested
GFRP bars even after 1.5 years of exposure.
Funding
The authors would like to acknowledge the Center of
Excellence for Research in Engineering Materials
(CEREM), College of Engineering, King Saud University,
for funding the project.

Acknowledgments
The authors would like to acknowledge the Specialty Units
for Safety and Preservation of Structures and MMB Chair for
Research and Studies in Strengthening and Rehabilitation of
Structures at the Civil Engineering Department, for their support in conducting this research project.

Conflict of Interest
None declared.

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