Timber reinforced FRP: Compression failure mechanism

Paper in proceeding, 2012

When it comes to strengthening, structural timber engineering has seen polymer composite materials becoming key materials over the last decades. A great number of studies have already shown that the majority of the results were promising. Several strengthening systems applied to structural timber or glued-laminated timber beams revealed that the ultimate failure mode remains in tension regardless of the reinforced system. However, the collapse can be controlled and postponed by optimising the strengthening system. It has been shown that strengthening timber on the tension and compression side simultaneously increases the stiffness and moment capacity more than if the reinforcement was only positioned on the tension side. This is mainly due to the ductility of wood in compression which is fully utilised when strengthening is located on both sides. The main objective behind this study is to develop an experimental method to determine the compressive behaviour of small clear timber specimens reinforced with CFRP.