A case study on the feasibility of using static-cast fibre-reinforced concrete electric poles fully reinforced with glass fibre reinforced polymer bars and stirrups

Highlights

• Commercial H-shaped reinforced concrete utility poles manufacturing and testing.

• Full-scale GFRP reinforced fibre reinforced concrete utility poles.

• Effect of Poly propylene and Polyolefin fibres on crack initiation, propagation, width, and number.

Abstract

This study experimentally investigates the structural performance of full-scale reinforced concrete utility poles fully reinforced with glass fibre reinforced polymer (GFRP) bars. The weak bond strength between GFRP bars and concrete in full-scale structures has been addressed by using an innovative anchorage system. Furthermore, fibre-reinforced concrete (FRC) was successfully used to enhance the crack propagations of GFRP-reinforced concrete poles. Three poles were constructed from FRC, while one was constructed with normal concrete (NC) as a benchmark. Polypropylene (PP) and crimped polyolefin-based macro-synthetic (CPO) fibres were used. An innovative anchorage system was used to increase the bond strength between longitudinal bars and the concrete. Crack initiation and pattern, load-carrying capacity and vertical deflections of GFRP reinforced FRC poles were obtained and compared with their normal concrete counterparts. According to the results, the PP-FRC pole showed better crack propagation performance, while the CPO-FRC showed higher stiffness than the normal concrete poles. In addition, regardless of the concrete type, the permanent deformation of all GFRP reinforced concrete poles after different stages of loading were significantly smaller than those of typical steel reinforced concrete poles.