Flexural Testing of Fiber Reinforced Polymer-Concrete Composite Bridge Superstructure

The concept of the fiber reinforced polymer (FRP)-concrete composite design was exploited in a new type of bridge superstructure. The proposed FRP-concrete composite bridge superstructure is intended to have durable, structurally sound, and cost effective composite system that will take full advantage of the inherent and complementary properties of FRP material and concrete. As a trial case, a prototype bridge superstructure was designed as a simply supported single-span one-lane bridge with a span length of 10 m. The bridge superstructure consists of two bridge decks and each bridge deck is comprised of four FRP box sections combined with a thin layer of concrete in the compression zone. A test specimen, fabricated as a one-third scale model of the prototype bridge superstructure, was subjected to four-points loading to simulate the two heaviest axles of the Chinese design truck load. The test results indicate that the proposed bridge model meets the stiffness requirement and has significant reserve strength.