Flexural behavior of concrete beams reinforced with aramid fiber reinforced polymer (AFRP) bars

Due to the low elastic modulus of FRP, concrete members reinforced with FRP rebars show greater deflections than members reinforced with steel rebars. Deflection is one of the important factors to consider the serviceability of horizontal members. In this study flexural test of AFRP reinforced concrete beams was performed considering reinforcement ratio and compressive strength as parameters. The test results indicated that flexural capacity and stiffness increase in proportion to the reinforcement ratio. The test results were compared with existing proposed equations for the effective moment of inertia including ACI 440. The most of the proposed equations were found to over-estimate the effective moment of inertia while the equation proposed by Bischoff and Scanlon (2007) most accurately predicted the values obtained through actual testing.