Precast high-performance concrete (HPC) sheet piles prestressed with glass fiber reinforced polymer (GFRP) bars. (15th January 2023) - Spagnuolo, S.
Highlights: Precast high HPC sheet piles prestressed with GFRP bars prototypes are presented. Three Full scale experimental tests on HPC sheet piles prestressed with GFRP bars are carried out; The flexural behaviour is analysed, up to failure; One more than three years aged specimen is tested for analysing the influence of the time on the global behaviour. Effectiveness of simplified analytical sectional models. Abstract: Since decades, the prestressed reinforced concrete technique, with steel strands, has been widely used in structural and infrastructural fields. The paper deals with the possibility to replace the traditional steel strands with new composite Glass Fiber Reinforced Polymer (GFRP) bars for the prestressing of precast High Performance Concrete (HPC) sheet piles. The use of prestressing combined with composite reinforcing bars could be a good solution in all those cases where the attention of the design is focus on durability, structural lightness, speed of execution, sustainability, economic savings due to the reduction of the structure maintenance. In order to evaluate the potentiality and feasibility of the proposed technique, full-scale experimental tests on sheet piles are carried out at the Laboratory of the University of Rome Tor Vergata. A suitable design and check procedure is also applied and discussed.