Bending behavior of steel bars reinforced Glulam beams considering the homogenized cross section

ABSTRACT

The use of reinforcements in glued laminated timber (Glulam) beams has enabled the increase of mechanical performance of this type of structure. This work aimed to evaluate the performance of Glulam beams reinforced with steel bars, having applied the homogenization of the cross section. Therefore, the experimental results of reinforced Glulam beams under static bending were investigated by the finite element method. The vertical displacements and the bending normal stresses obtained by numerical modeling were slightly smaller than previously performed experimental results and, such differences were smaller with the increase of the ratio of reinforcement. It was concluded that the results of the numerical modeling applied with the homogenized section were as accurate as the results of the simulation with the discretized materials, highlighting the advantage of using a less complex mesh for the modeling of reinforced Glulam beams.

KEYWORDS:

• Glued engineered wood products
• steel reinforcement
• stiffness
• finite element method
• transformed cross section method

Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the support of Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior – Brazil (CAPES) – Financing Code 001. The support obtained from the Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo – FAPESP (proc. 2017/18076-4).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).