ABSTRACT
Fibre reinforced polymer (FRP) composites are widely used in offshore construction due to their significant advantages over other conventional building materials. At present, one potential use of FRP composites in construction is in low-rise buildings where the requirement for fire resistance is low.
This paper presents the results of a series of tests to investigate the compression behaviour of pultruded 100 × 40 × 5 mm Glass Reinforced Plastic (GRP) C-shaped channels at different elevated temperatures. A total of 42 tests were conducted, i.e. 27 tests about the minor axis of the section and 15 tests about the major axis. In the case of minor axis buckling tests, the column lengths were 500, 900 and 1350mm and the test temperatures were 20 (ambient), 60, 90 and 120°C. For the major axis bucking tests, both concentric and eccentric axial loads were applied on channels of 900 and 1500mm long at 20 (ambient) and 120°C. This paper will discuss the observed modes of failure of different tests and report their failure strengths. The tests have been simulated using a commercial finite element software ABAQUS and this paper will present some results of this numerical study.
