Effect of Harsh Environmental Exposure on the Flexural Performance of BFRP-RC Beams

This paper's main objective is to study the flexural behavior of concrete beams reinforced with basalt fiber-reinforced polymer (BFRP) bars that were exposed to harsh environmental conditions before casting. The bars were placed in a tank outdoors for a year where they were exposed to direct heat from the sun, humidity and occasional rain. A four-point test was conducted on four concrete beams reinforced longitudinally with unexposed and exposed BFRP bars, respectively. A 30 MPa concrete compressive strength was used to cast all beams, which were designed to be over-reinforced, and thus were expected to fail by concrete crushing. The effects of exposure and reinforcement ratio were studied by investigating the cracking moments, load-deflection curves and failure modes. Results indicated that exposure had no significant effect on ductility and did not affect the failure mode. Also, increasing the reinforcement ratio increased the capacity of the beams as per the theoretical prediction by the ACI440-1R.15.