Strengthening of Timber Beams using Glass Fiber Reinforced Polymers and Wire Mesh.
Authors
HESHAM ALSHARIE, YASSER I. O. YAHIA, HAZEM J. T. ALRABADI, TALAL MASOUD and AZIZ.I. ABDULLA
Abstract
An experimental study was carried out to investigate the performance of timber beams strengthened using fiber reinforced polymer and wire mesh. A series of ten timber beams with 200 × 125 mm rectangular cross section and 2000 mm long were tested up to failure under one-point load. The current study examined the effect of strengthened materials types, the thickness of the used sheets and strengthening configuration. The results showed that all of strengthening schemes investigated in this study were efficient in augmenting the load carrying capacity of timber beams but didn’t enhance their stiffness. Using welded wire mesh significantly enhanced the failure capacity and energy absorption capacity of the strengthened beams as compared to GFRP sheets. Keywords: Timber Beams, Welded Wire Mesh, Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer, Load Carrying Capacity.
