Composite Structures 176 (2017) 608–616

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Composite Structures
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/compstruct

Experimental study of the mechanical behavior of FRP-reinforced

concrete canvas panels
Fangyuan Zhang a, Huisu Chen a,⇑, Xiangyu Li b,⇑, Hui Li a, Tao Lv c, Wulong Zhang c, Yujie Yang c
a
Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Construction Materials, School of Materials Science & Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing 211189, China
b
College of Architecture and Civil Engineering, Taiyuan University of Technology, Taiyuan 030024, China
c
Architectural Engineering Institute of the General Logistic Department, P.L.A., Xi an, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Concrete canvas (CC) is a promising material in civil and military engineering due to its flexibility, fast
Received 16 July 2016 construction with low labor cost, and rapid strength development. However, relatively lower tensile
Revised 16 April 2017 and flexural strength limit the application of CC products. This paper presents an experimental study
Accepted 30 May 2017
of the improvement of the tensile and flexural strength of CC panels through the employment of external
Available online 1 June 2017
reinforcement by a fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) sheet. The tensile and flexural behaviors of CC and FRP
reinforced CC panels are investigated through uniaxial tensile and four-point bending tests in both warp
Keywords:
and weft directions. The bond behavior between FRP sheets and CC is investigated through a single-shear
Concrete canvas
FRP
pull-off test, by which both strain distribution and local bond stress-slip relationships are experimentally
Mechanical behavior measured. Experimental results reveal that the tensile and flexural properties, especially the reinforcing
Bond efficiency of flexural strength, are significantly improved in the FRP reinforced CC samples.
Ó 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Concrete canvas (CC), invented by Brewin and Crawford in 2005
[1], is a flexible 3D spacer fabric impregnated with calcium alumi-
nate cement (CAC) powder. Like soft cloth, CC can closely cover the
arbitrary surface of a structure or element during construction,
without the need for mixing equipment. Then, with the addition
of water, the solid surface of CC hardens to form a thin, durable,
waterproof and fire resistant concrete layer. Its final shape is
exactly same as the outer profile of the structure or element cov-
ered by the CC. Due to the flexibility and rapid construction of
CC, with low labor cost, and the quick setting of CAC, CC has been
applied in civil and military engineering [1], examples of applica-
tions including cover for a prefabricated shelter, slope protection
[2], a trackway for vehicles or pedestrians, a protection layer for
lining, and uses within the defense sector. However, compared to
the casting, compacting, and finishing processes of conventional
plain concrete or fiber/textile reinforced concrete, the impregna-
tion process of dry cement powder into 3D spacer fabric leads to
a relatively lower initial apparent density of CC, around 1300–
1500 kg/m3, dependent on the geometrical pattern of the spacer
⇑ Corresponding authors.
E-mail addresses: chenhs@seu.edu.cn (H. Chen), xiangyu23@gmail.com (X. Li).
fabric and the type of cementitious binder [3–5]. After spraying
with water, the final apparent density of the hardened CC product
is around 1700–2000 kg/m3 [1,3–5], only 70–80% of that for ordi-
nary concrete (2200–2400 kg/m3). Consequently, there is a greater
likelihood of producing a hardened matrix with high porosity due
to initial loosening of powder packing inside the fabric and over-
dosage of added water [3]. Moreover, the 3D spacer fabric is a loose
woven material. Therefore, the tensile strength of CC is low, its ini-
tial cracking tensile strength and flexural strength being roughly
0.3–1.3 MPa and 3.4 MPa [1,5], respectively.
Clearly, the low tensile and flexural strength significantly limit
the applications of CC. Han et al. [3] studied the possibility of
improving the mechanical strength of CC by replacing CAC cement
with the mixture of calcium sulfoaluminate cement (CSA) and gyp-
sum [3], and adjusting the geometric pattern of the 3D spacer fab-
ric [5]. Unfortunately, the improvement of tensile and flexural
strength was not significant. In this study, inspired by the strength-
ening of structural concrete elements by externally bonded
fiber-reinforced polymer (EB-FRP), we investigate the possibility
of applying FRP reinforcement into CC systems with the aim of
improving the mechanical properties while simultaneously retain-
ing the advantages of CC. Considering the high demand for
bulletproof CC products, we investigated the use of aramid
fiber-reinforced polymer (AFRP) sheet reinforced CC (AF_CC) for
the purpose of improving the tensile and flexural strength of CC

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compstruct.2017.05.072
0263-8223/Ó 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 F. Zhang et al. / Composite Structures 176 (2017) 608–616 609

products. We choose aramid fiber sheeting because of is its wide

application in the bulletproof field.
In the past two decades, the popular EB-FRP method has been
widely used for retrofitting, strengthening and repair of concrete
structures [7–10]. The strengthening efficiency of the EB-FRP struc-
tural system is commonly determined by the interfacial behavior
between the FRP and concrete [11]. Furthermore, FRP has superior
mechanical and physical properties [12,13], such as impact resis-
tance, stiffness, flexibility, high tensile strength, thin and light
weight, that are applicable for external reinforcement of CC.
To the authors’ best knowledge, little work has been performed
on FRP reinforced CC. The present study investigates the improve-
ment of the mechanical behavior of CC with AFRP reinforcement.
For this purpose, tensile and flexural strain-stress curves of CC
and AF_CC are obtained through uniaxial tensile testing and four-
point bending tests, respectively. Further, the interfacial bond
behavior between AFRP and CC is investigated by both experiment
and theoretical analysis.

2. Materials and sample preparation

2.1. 3D knitted spacer fabric

Based on previous study [5] of 3D spacer fabrics, N15, a type of

3D knitted spacer fabric, is used for this study. This 3D knitted
spacer fabric has a sandwich structure in which spacer monofila-
Fig. 2. Model of double-needle-bar Raschel knitting [6].
ments connect a separate multifilament meshed surface layer
(MF) and solid surface layer (SF). A typical 3D spacer fabric and
the internal components are presented in Fig. 1 [5]. The warp yarns Table 1
are inserted into the stitches and assembled together with the weft Lapping code and threading of 3D spacer fabric.
yarns, and in this way a grid net can be produced and the meshes
Fiber Lapping code//Threading
in the net can be knitted in various shapes. In addition, two differ-
300D/288F DTYa PETb GB1:1–0 4–5//fully threaded
ent kinds of spacer yarn can be inserted into the structure. Spacer
multifilament GB2:4–5 1–0//fully threaded
yarn I is vertical to the outer textile substrates and spacer yarn II is PET monofilament GB3:1–0 4–5//1fully1empty threaded
inclined to the outer textile substrates. The warp direction is along GB4:0–1 1–0//1fully1empty threaded
the machine direction and the weft direction is orthogonal to the 300D/96F FDYc PET GB5:1–0 0–1//1fully1empty threaded
warp direction. multifilament GB6:0–0 0–0 5–5 5–5//1fully1empty
threaded
The N15 3D spacer fabric with thickness of 15 mm is produced
on a double-needle-bar Raschel knitting machine with six guide a
DTY: draw texturing yarn.
b
bars (see in Fig. 2). The machine consists of two single needle Polyethylene terephthalate.
c
FDY: fully drawn yarn.
bed fabrics from the front and rear sides and a yarn system, build-
ing loops on both side. The front guide bars (GB 1 and 2) knit a base
fabric on the front needle bar only, while the rear bars (GB 5 and 6) The structure view and parameters of the 3D spacer fabric sample
knit the other separate base fabric on the back needle bar. The mid- are shown in Fig. 3 and Table 2 respectively. The tensile properties
dle bars (GB 3 and 4) carry the spacer yarns and knit on both nee- of N15 3D spacer fabric can be found in Ref. [5].
dle bars in succession. The lapping code and threading are shown
in Table 1. 2.2. Binder matrix
Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) is used for the fabrics, with
spacer yarns being monofilament with the diameter of 0.18 mm, A commercially available calcium sulfoaluminate cement (CSA)
the solid surface yarns being 300D/288F DTY PET multifilament, is used. The mineral composition of the cement determined by
and mesh surface yarns being 300D/96F FDY PET multifilament. X-ray diffraction (XRD) with Rietveld refinement, as well as the
The distance between the needle beds is kept constant at 15 mm. chemical composition by X-ray fluorescence (XRF), are given in

Fig. 1. A typical 3D spacer fabric [5].

610 F. Zhang et al. / Composite Structures 176 (2017) 608–616

Table 3
Mineral and chemical compositions of CSA (wt.%).

Mineralogical composition*a [wt.%] Chemical composition*b [wt.%]

C4A3$ 65.51 SiO2 8.5
CT 6.48 Al2O3 32.6
C2 S -b 16.52 Fe2O3 2.7
C4AF 2.12 CaO 41.7
C12A7 4.27 MgO 3.5
C$ 0.45 SO3 9
CaO 1.52 TiO2 1.5
CaMg(CO)2 3.14 L.O.I. 0.5

L.O.I.: loss on ignition.

a
Mineral composition by XRD and Rietveld refinement.
b
Chemical analysis by XRF.

Fig. 3. Structure view of 3D spacer fabric: (a) Front view (b) Side view: warp
direction (c) Side view: weft direction and (d) Rear view.

Table 3. The cement is blended with a -hemihydrate gypsum (94%

purity) in 40 wt.% proportion. The Blaine specific surfaces for the
CSA cement and a-hemihydrate gypsum are 442 m2/kg and
270 m2/kg, respectively.

2.3. Preparation of CC and AFRP reinforced CC

2.3.1. CC
All the CC specimens are prepared at the temperature of
20 ± 2 °C and relative humidity of 60 ± 5%. The matrix is first pre-
pared by dry powders (CSA + hemihydrates) mixed for 10 min
using a Thunderbird ARM-02 mixer (94 r/min). Then the powder Fig. 4. Compressive strength of CC samples at different curing times.
mixture is gradually trapped in 3D spacer fabric by vibration until
the bulk density reaches 1300 kg/m3 (to ensure the powder is fully
impregnated in the 3D spacer fabric and is compacted). Then the
fabric is wet by spraying tap water at 20 °C homogeneously into for 7 days, subsequently being moved to the testing room for
the surface of CC until the water-to-binder ratio reaches 0.37. another 12 h before test.
Finally, the samples are stored in the curing room (temperature The material properties of the AFRP sheet and the adhesives are
20 ± 2 °C and relative humidity 60 ± 5%) until testing. determined according to ASTM D3039-14 [14] and ASTM D638-14
The CC is cured for 10 days because its strength reaches near its [15], respectively. A summary is given in Table 4.
maximum value at 10 days (see Fig. 4). The samples are then cut
into panels of the required dimensions for mechanical testing. 3. Experimental program

2.3.2. AFRP reinforced CC
In this study, a commercially available aramid fiber unidirec-
tional cloth (Jiangsu Zhongyi Special Fibers Co. Ltd, China) is used
for the AFRP system that is formed by aramid unidirectional fabric
and epoxy resin. The adhesives used for AFRP bonding consist of an
epoxy resin (E44 6101) and a hardener (WRS 650) procured by the
China National BlueStar Co., Ltd. The mass ratio between the two
components is 1:1. The two components are manually stirred for
3 min. The AFRP sheet is then lay-up onto the MF surface of CC
panels that is cleaned by blowing to remove any dust. Then the
samples are cured at T = 20 ± 2 °C and relative humidity = 60 ± 5%
Due to the anisotropy of 3D spacer fabrics, the mechanical prop-
erties of CCs and AF_CCs in both warp and weft directions are
investigated.
3.1. Compressive test of CC
The dimensions of the CC samples for compressive tests are 15
(length)
15 (width)
30 (height) mm3. For both warp and weft
directions, three samples are tested to obtain the average compres-
sive strength and standard deviation. The loading speed for com-
pressive testing is 1 mm/min.

Table 2
Structure parameters of 3D spacer fabric.

No. Surface layer Thickness (mm) Density Diameter of spacer Amount of spacer yarn Angle of spacer
structure yarn (mm) yarn (degree)
Area (g/m2) Bulk (kg/m3) warp weft
N15 Chain + inlay 15 1400 90 0.18 70 50.4 54.0
 F. Zhang et al. / Composite Structures 176 (2017) 608–616 611

Table 4
Material properties of AFRP and adhesive.

Type of specimen ft (MPa) Ef; Ead,(GPa) G (GPa) m (-) t (mm) eu (%)

AFRP 1041.70 ± 80.09 126.33 ± 10.94 0.22 ± 0.03 0.099 ± 0.005 2.71 ± 0.21
Adhesives 42.26 ± 5.41 2.33 ± 0.29 0.89 ± 0.06 0.37 ± 0.03 0.4

3.2. Single-shear pull-off test of AFRP-to-CC bonded joints
Determination of interfacial bond behavior is essential for study
of the mechanical properties of composite materials and struc-
tures. In this study, the interfacial bond behavior of AFRP-to-CC
bonded joints is investigated and the results can be used for pre-
diction and analysis of the mechanical behavior of AFRP reinforced
CC panels. The interfacial bond is usually studied through simple
pull-off (or shear) tests by experimental testing and a bond-slip
model [16,17]. Since the single-shear pull-off test is a commonly
used and most effective method for characterization of the interfa-
cial bond of EB-FRP systems [14,15,18–23], it is modified to inves-
tigate the bond behavior of FRP-to-CC bonded joints.
In the single-shear pull-off test, effective bond length is an
important parameter for the study of bond behavior between FRP
plate and concrete [20–22]. An effective bond length, Le (mm)
exists, beyond which extension of the bond length cannot increase
the debonding load [22]. Based on Chen-Teng’s bond strength
model [19], Le is given by Eq. (1):
sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
Efrp tfrp
Le ¼ pffiffiffiffi
fc
shown in Fig. 4. Lfrp and bfrp/bc have significant effects on bond
strength but insufficient test data exist to rigorously verify the pro-
posed relationships [19]. The value of bfrp/bc is selected based on
the effect of the FRP-to-concrete-width ratio [11,17]. For simplic-
ity, the bond length Lfrp = 200 mm, the width of the FRP sheet
bfrp = 50 mm, and the height of the concrete free edge hc = 3 mm
(=h(15 mm)  hb(12 mm)) are used in this paper. Three samples
of each group are tested for the debonding behavior of the FRP-
to-CC bonded joints along both warp and weft directions.
A single-shear pull-off test is developed for AFRP-to-CC bonded
joints. As shown in Fig. 6, the CC panel is fixed on the support
frame with three positioning frames. In this rig, the vertical sup-
port frame is used to ensure that the CC panel is vertical. Thus
the load can be accurately positioned along the longitudinal axis
and the loaded AFRP sheet is parallel to the CC during the test.
Because the CC panel is thin, three positioning frames are used to
keep the CC panel vertical and prevent it from bending and suffer-
ing torsion deformation. Moreover, it is very important to keep ver-
tical the midline of the AFRP sheets on which the center of the
ð1Þ

where Efrp is the tensile elastic modulus of the FRP in GPa; tfrp is the
thickness of the FRP in mm; fc is the compressive strength of the CC
in MPa.
Combining the parameters given in Table 5 and Eq. (1), the cal-
culated effective bonding lengths Le are 44.71 mm for the warp
specimen and 45.57 mm for the weft specimen. To observe the
whole peeling-off procedure, the bond length of 200 mm is applied
for both warp and weft specimens. To avoid wedge damage of the
CC caused by shear stress during testing [23], an unbonded zone of
40 mm is designed. Pull-off tests are usually controlled by pulling
at the loaded end [11].
The single-shear pull-off test specimen, as shown in Fig. 5, is
prepared using a AFRP sheet externally bonded CC panel with
length 400 mm, width 100 mm, and thickness 15 mm. The factors
considered in the present test program include the bond length Lfrp,
the width of the FRP sheet bfrp, and the height of the concrete free
edge hc (=height of concrete prism h–height of support block hb) as Fig. 6. Single-shear pull-off test setup: (a) schematic and (b) real test setup.

Table 5
Experimental and theoretical results.

Specimen Ga/ta Eftf A (e) B mm1 Gf smax smax Pmax Pmax Pmax
(GPa/mm) (KN/mm) (N/mm) (MPa) (mm) (kN) Expt. (kN) Anal. (Anal./Expt.)
Warp 2.97 12.51 0.0055 22.25 0.19 2.11 0.0312 3.41 3.92(Teng) 0.87
Weft 2.97 12.51 0.0058 22.25 0.21 2.34 0.0312 3.59 3.91(Teng) 0.92

Fig. 5. AFRP-to-CC bonded joint.

612 F. Zhang et al. / Composite Structures 176 (2017) 608–616

Fig. 7. Schematic of tensile specimen.

actuator is located [11,24]. To achieve this, in addition to the

abovementioned methods, a ball joint hinge in the support frame
is designed that can adjust automatically.
The single-shear pull-off test is performed under displacement
control at the free ends of the AFRP sheet at the rate of 0.1 mm/
min using MTS 810. Twenty strain gauges are placed along the
AFRP sheet in the centerline, to measure longitudinal strains.
Two LVDTs (Linear Variable Differential Transformer) (Type CDP-
25, Tokyo Sokki Keakyujo Co., Ltd.) are set at both the loaded ends
of the surfaces of the AFRP and the CC panels at the same level, to
Fig. 8. Four-point bending test setup: (a) configuration and (b) real test setup.
obtain the relative slips between the AFRP sheets and the CC.

3.3. Uniaxial tensile test

Table 7
The uniaxial tensile test serves to investigate the effect of AFRP Flexural properties of CC and AFRP reinforced CC.
reinforcement of CC’s tensile strength by comparing the typical CCs Flexural
stress-strain curves of CC and AF_CC. Each group has three sam-
Strain at first Deflection at MOR Equivalent Young’s
ples. The uniaxial tensile test is performed on MTS 810 under dis- crack (%) first crack (mm) (MPa) Modulus (MPa)
placement control at the loading speed of 1 mm/min. The CC
CC-warp 0.09 ± 0.02 0.96 ± 0.24 2.40 ± 0.26 2.39 ± 0.27
panels are cut by a cutting machine into samples with the dimen- CC-weft 0.10 ± 0.01 1.06 ± 0.06 2.15 ± 0.09 2.10 ± 0.03
sions 400 mm (length)
100 mm (width)
15 mm (thickness) as AF_CC-warp 1.72 ± 0.23 17.89 ± 2.39 50.86 ± 0.99 2.98 ± 0.39
shown in Fig. 7. The thickness of specimens is identical to that of AF_CC-weft 1.79 ± 0.19 18.47 ± 1.94 42.86 ± 4.61 2.40 ± 0.22
the 3D spacer fabric. Specimens with the same dimensions are pre-
pared for the tensile testing of the AF_CC samples. To alleviate FL
MOR ¼ ð2Þ
localized damage and minimize deformation of matrix under grip bh
2

during the tensile tests, metal tabs are plated with epoxy resins
at both ends of the CC and AF_CC panels. FL1 ð3L2  4L21 Þ
E¼ ð3Þ
48dI
3.4. Four-point bending test
where F is the maximum force in kN; L1 is the moment arm in mm
and L is the length of the total span in mm; d is the displacement
To obtain the flexural behavior of the CC and AF_CC specimens,
under the maximum force at the mid span in mm; b is the width
the four-point bending test is performed on a hydraulic servo load-
of specimen in mm and h is the height of CC panel in mm, as shown
ing system INSTRON 8802 at the loading rate of 1 mm/min. The
in Fig. 8. I is the inertia moment of the CC panel, as determined by
deflections are measured by a LVDT placed under the panel at
I = bh3/12.
the midspan. The average values and standard deviation of at least
According to ASTM D6272-10, the maximum strain in the outer
three parallel samples are acquired for CC and AF_CC panels in the
fibers occurring at midspan during the four-point bending test can
warp and weft directions. The specimen sizes and test set up are
be calculated by Eq. (4):
shown in Fig. 8.
The maximum flexural strength MOR and equivalent Young’s 4:36Dh
modulus E of the specimen can be calculated by Eq. (2) and Eq.
e¼ ð4Þ
L2
(3), and the results are summarized in Table 7.

Table 6
Tensile properties of CC and AFRP reinforced CC.

CCs Tensile strain (%) Tensile strength (MPa)

At first crack Under max load At first crack Under max load
CC-warp 0.03 15.10 ± 0.46 0.72 ± 0.19 1.36 ± 0.15
CC-weft 0.04 22 0.17 ± 0.04 0.99 ± 0.02
AF_CC-warp 4.06 ± 0.64 4.06 ± 0.64 8.74 ± 0.61 8.74 ± 0.61
AF_CC-weft 3.74 ± 0.27 3.74 ± 0.27 8.76 ± 0.31 8.76 ± 0.31
 F. Zhang et al. / Composite Structures 176 (2017) 608–616
Fig. 9. Compressive stress-strain curve of the CC used: (a) warp and (b) weft.
Fig. 10. Strain distribution of fiber-reinforced plastic sheets along bond interface: (a) warp and (b) weft.
where e is the strain in the outer fibers in mm/mm; D is deflection
of the center of the beam in mm; L is the length of the support span
in mm and h is the height in mm.
4. Test results and discussion
4.1. Compressive behavior of CC
Experimental compressive stress-strain curves and their poly-
nomial regressions of CC samples are shown in Fig. 9, in which
the black solid line represents the compressive stress-strain curve
from experiment and the gray zone is the standard deviation, the
red dashed lines are polynomial fit curves used for design calcula-
tion in Section 4.5. The compressive stress-strain relationship in
the CC is expressed by Eq. (5):
r ¼ f ðeÞ ¼ Ae2 þ Be e 6 ec0
where r is the compressive stress of the CC in MPa; ec0 is the limit
of the compressive strain e; the values of A and B are shown in Fig. 9.
4.2. Bond behavior
As the interfacial bond stress is directly proportional to the
AFRP strain distribution, measurement of the AFRP strain distribu-
tion is important for characterization of the bond interface. Three
samples each group are tested for the bond behavior of the AFRP
sheet along the warp and weft directions. Along the bond length,
strain distribution in the AFRP sheets is shown in Fig. 10.
These strains are directly measured by strain gauges mounted
on the upper surface of the AFRP sheet during the pull-off tests.
It should be noted that a large part of the AFRP sheet near the far
end still has minimal strain when the Le is reached. This phe-
nomenon confirms the concept of effective bond length, implying
that increasing the bond length beyond a certain value does not
613
further increase the bond strength. The failure mode observed in
the bonding test is when all the specimens fail due to AFRP
sheet-to-adhesive interfacial failure, in which a thin layer of AFRP
sheet is attached to the adhesives after failure.
Based on the results of the AFRP strain distribution, the stress-
slip relationships are calculated based on Dai’s model [24]. Assum-
ing that the interval of gauges is a constant value x, the local bond
stress can be obtained using the expression:
Ef tf ðei  ei1 Þ
s¼ ð6Þ
Dx
where s is the average interfacial bond stress in the section in MPa;
ei and ei-1 are the strain values of the ith and (i  1)th gauges
arranged on AFRP sheets respectively; Ef and tf are the elastic mod-
ulus and thickness of the AFRP sheets in MPa and mm, respectively.
The local slip is caused by the strain difference between AFRP
ð5Þ sheets and CC. The strain of the CC can be neglected and the free
end slip can be regarded as approximately zero in the case of a long
bond length. Therefore the local slip can be expressed as:
!
Dx X
i1
Si ¼ e0 þ 2 ej þ ei ð7Þ
2 j¼1
where Si is the local slip between the AFRP sheets and CC at the sec-
tion in mm; e0 is the strain of the AFRP sheets at the free end of the
bond area. ej is the strain value of the jth gauge arranged on the
AFRP sheets. The results are plotted in Fig. 11.
Further, by applying Dai’s model [24] for the bond stress-slip
relationship, the corresponding theoretical bond-slip relationships
are calculated as shown in Fig. 12. From Fig. 11 and Fig. 12, we see
very good agreement in the bond-slip relationship. As Le is
designed based on Chen-Teng’s bond strength model [19], the
maximal load is also calculated and compared with the experimen-
tal results. The experimental and theoretical results are summa-
rized in Table 5.
614 F. Zhang et al. / Composite Structures 176 (2017) 608–616

Fig. 11. Calculated local bond stress-slip relationships at different locations away from loaded end: (a) warp and (b) weft direction.

Fig. 12. Proposed bond stress-slip relationships: (a) warp direction (b) weft direction.

Fig. 13. Tensile stress-strain curves (a) CC: warp direction (b) weft direction (c)AF_CC: warp direction and (d)AF_CC: weft direction.

4.3. Tensile behavior CC sample, the tensile strength of the AF_CC increases from
0.72 MPa to 8.74 MPa along the warp direction and from
Fig. 13 shows the tensile stress-strain curves of CCs with and 0.17 MPa to 8.76 MPa along the weft direction. The CC samples
without AFRP reinforcement. Compared with the reference plain exhibit typical strain hardening behavior, whereas the tensile
 F. Zhang et al. / Composite Structures 176 (2017) 608–616 615

behavior of the AF_CC samples shows that tensile stress
increases to the peak value under the strain of 4.06% (for warp)
and 3.74% (for weft). Beyond the peak stress, the tensile stress
shows a sudden decrease, accompanied by localized crack exten-
sion. We can also see that the warp CC samples show higher
tensile stress at the first crack (0.72 MPa) than that (0.17 MPa)
of the weft CC samples. However, beyond the first crack the weft
CC shows a more rapid increase of tensile stress. When the
strain for the warp and weft CC further increase to 15.1% and
22%, the maximal tensile stresses are 1.36 MPa and 0.99 MPa,
respectively. The difference between the warp and weft samples
could be caused by the large increase in the reinforcing effi-
ciency factor when the orientation angle of the warp/weft yarns
decreases. This is attributed to the larger contribution of warp/
weft yarns’ strength with the decrease of orientation angle along
the loading direction [5]. The ensile properties of the CCs and
AF_CCs are summarized in Table 6.
4.4. Flexural behavior
Fig. 14 shows the flexural behavior of the CCs and AFRP rein-
forced CCs. The CC shows typical strain hardening behavior. The
flexural stress increases rapidly to the peak value (2.4 MPa for
warp and 2.15 MPa for weft) at the first crack and then increases
at a slower rate, accompanied by the development of multiple fine
cracks until the test is stopped at the deflection of nearly 25 mm.
With the reinforcement of AFRP, the flexural stress of the rein-
forced CC increases at a similar rate as to that of the CC panel
before the first crack, up to the peak value (50.86 MPa for the warp
and 42.86 for the weft), then decreases sharply. The average beam
deflection at peak stress is 17.89 mm for the warp and 18.47 mm
for the weft. Although the deflection is greater than those mea-
sured at the first crack for the CC, no visible cracks are observed
before peak load. Finally, back views of CC and AFRP reinforced
CC specimens after flexural failure are shown in Fig. 15. The tensile

Fig. 14. Flexural behavior of: (a) CC: warp (b) CC: weft (c) AF_CC: warp (d) AF_CC: weft.
616 F. Zhang et al. / Composite Structures 176 (2017) 608–616
Fig. 15. Back view of specimens after flexural failure: (a) CC and (b) AF_CC.
surface of the CCs exhibits multiple parallel cracks and only one
large crack can be seen in the tensile surface of the AFRP reinforced
CCs. This phenomenon is related to the strain hardening and brittle
nature of CC and AFRP reinforced CC, respectively, indicating that
the external bonding of the AFRP sheet efficiently prevents the
development of cracking in the early stage, a finding that is consis-
tent with the results obtained in the uniaxial tensile test.
The flexural properties of the CCs and the AF_CCs are summa-
rized in Table 7. It should be noted that the MOR of the AFRP rein-
forced CCs is nearly 20 times greater than that of the CCs, whereas
the equivalent Young’s modulus of the reinforced CC increases only
slightly, by 24% for the warp and by 14% for the weft.
5. Conclusions
In this study, the mechanical behavior of FRP reinforced CC is
first experimentally investigated by employing tensile and flexural
tests. The results indicate that FRP reinforced CC shows significant
improvement in terms of mechanical behavior. The tensile
strength of CC with AFRP reinforcement reaches 8.74 MPa for the
warp direction and 8.76 MPa for the weft direction, about 6 and
9 times respectively higher than that of CC alone (1.36 MPa for
the warp direction and 0.99 MPa for the weft direction under max-
imum load). The flexural strength of CC with AFRP reinforcement is
50.86 MPa for the warp direction and 42.86 MPa for the weft direc-
tion, about 20 times greater than that of CC alone (2.4 MPa for the
warp direction and 2.15 MPa for the weft direction). The results
also show that the flexural strength of CC with AFRP reinforcement
along the warp direction is nearly 16% higher than that measured
along the weft direction. During the tensile and flexural testing,
potential cracks are efficiently prevented because the AFRP fiber
sheet transfers tensile stress to the 3D spacer fabric of the CC.
FRP reinforcement provides an efficient measure to extend applica-
tions of CC by virtue of its significant improvement of mechanical
properties.
Acknowledgments
The authors gratefully acknowledge financial supports from the
National Nature Science Foundation Project of China (grant No.
51461135001), the Architectural Engineering Institute of the Gen-
eral Logistic, the Ministry of Science and Technology of China ‘973
Project’ (grant No. 2015CB655102) and Fundamental Research
Funds for the Central Universities (grant No. 2242016K41054).
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