Received: 28 January 2018 Revised: 15 May 2018 Accepted: 18 May 2018

DOI: 10.1111/ffe.12863

ORIGINAL CONTRIBUTION

Fatigue performance of RC beams strengthened with CFRP

under coupling action of temperatures and vehicle random
loads

JX Lin1 | PY Huang1,2 | XY Guo1 | XH Zheng1 | C. Zhao1

1
School of Civil Engineering and
Transportation, South China University of
Abstract
Technology, Guangzhou 510640, China Considering significant influence of servicing environments and vehicle ran-
2
State Key Laboratory of Subtropical dom loads on fatigue performance of main load‐bearing members of bridges,
Building Science, South China University
in this paper, fatigue performance of reinforced concrete bridge structures
of Technology, Guangzhou 510640, China
strengthened with carbon fibre–reinforced polymer under coupling action of
Correspondence environmental temperatures and vehicle random loads was studied. A vehicle
Peiyan Huang, School of Civil
random loading spectrum for fatigue tests was simulated and compiled. A
Engineering and Transportation, South
China University of Technology, fatigue testing method with coupling action of random loads and temperatures
Guangzhou 510640, China. was proposed, and 3‐point bending fatigue tests of the reinforced concrete
Email: pyhuang@scut.edu.cn
beams strengthened with carbon fibre–reinforced polymer under coupling
Funding information action of temperatures and vehicle random loads were performed. Effects of
National Key R&D Program of China, temperatures and loading form on the fatigue damage mechanism were pre-
Grant/Award Number: 2017YFC0806000;
National Natural Science Foundation of
liminarily discussed. A modified Palmgren‐Miner rule and semiempirical
China, Grant/Award Numbers: 11627802, fatigue equations were proposed and proved effective.
51678249, 11132004 and 51508202
KEYWORDS
carbon fibre–reinforced polymer (CFRP), coupling action, fatigue performance, reinforced concrete
(RC) beam, temperature, vehicle random load

1 | INTRODUCTION daily temperature difference of the structures are more

With the application of fibre‐reinforced polymer (FRP)
strengthening technology for reinforced concrete (RC)
structures, fatigue performance/durability research of
the RC structures strengthened with FRP has been widely
concerned.1-4 For FRP‐reinforced RC bridge structures,
on the one hand, the structures are served in the natural
environment. The annual temperature difference and
Nomenclature: D, Palmgren‐Miner accumulated damage; Dc,
Palmgren‐Miner accumulated critical damage; N, fatigue life; Nm,
average fatigue life; ni, loading cycles under the ith stress level;
ΔPmean, average loading amplitude of the vehicle random loading
spectrum; Pmax, average peak load of the vehicle random loading
spectrum; Pu, ultimate load‐bearing capacity of the strengthened beam;
SR, loading level of the vehicle random loading spectrum
significant than that of other buildings. The change of
the temperature will result in thermal stress in the RC
bridge structures strengthened with FRP and influences
bonding properties of FRP and concrete, thus affects
load‐bearing capacity and antifatigue performance of
structures.5,6 Moreover, the live loading of bridges is vehi-
cle load, which is random in both of time and space.
At present, the influence of environments on fatigue
performance and durability of the RC structures strength-
ened with FRP has attracted more and more attention in
civil engineering field.7-9 The research results showed
that the environmental temperature cannot be ignored
as the most common influencing factor. Adimi et al7
found out the fatigue lives of concrete beams strength-
ened with carbon fibre–reinforced polymer (CFRP) bars

Fatigue Fract Eng Mater Struct. 2019;42:31–44. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/ffe © 2018 Wiley Publishing Ltd. 31
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were obviously decreased as temperature was increased
from room temperature to 40°C. Li et al8 studied on the
effect of boiled water and ultraviolet on concrete beams
strengthened with grass fibre–reinforced polymer and
CFRP fabrics, and the tested and calculated results show
that environmental attacks have considerable effect on
structural degradation of FRP‐strengthened concrete
beams. Zheng et al9 found out that the environmental
temperature and humidity adversely affected the bonded
behaviour of carbon fibre laminate (CFL)‐concrete inter-
face. These studies had demonstrated the need to con-
sider the effect of temperature on fatigue performance
and durability of the concrete structures strengthened
with FRP. However, environment and load were consid-
ered separately in above traditional environmental
fatigue testing methods ignoring the effect of environ-
ment and load coupling action. These experimental
methods were hard to discover environment and load
coupling action or coupling mechanism and were differ-
ent from the real service conditions of main load‐bearing
structures of the bridges. Ferrier and Agbossou5 investi-
gated the combined effect of the temperature and
mechanical loads on FRP‐concrete bonds, and the results
showed the need to consider the combined effect. To dis-
cuss fatigue performance/durability of RC bridge struc-
tures strengthened with FRP under coupling action of
environments and fatigue loads, experimental studies
were performed by this research group.10-13 Qin et al10
found out fatigue limit of the RC beams strengthened
with CFRP under coupling action of hot‐wet environ-
ments and fatigue loads decreased about 15% comparing
with the traditional environmental fatigue tests. There-
fore, fatigue performance/durability of RC bridge struc-
tures strengthened with FRP under real service
conditions will be overestimated if the traditional experi-
mental results were used, which will be not safe for
fatigue performance/durability design.
The setting loads of the above experiments were con-
stant amplitude loads; however, the living loads on the
actual bridges are vehicle random loads. Loading spec-
trum is a key problem for studies on fatigue performance
of the bridge structures under random loads. Previous
works usually simplified the complex random loading
spectrum for ladder loading spectrum to reduce the
research difficulties.14,15 Due to the effects of loading
sequence and overloads of random loads and ladder
loads, the fatigue performance of materials and structures
is different from that under constant amplitude loads.14-17
Found and Quaresimin14 performed a 2‐stage fatigue
loading of woven carbon fibre–reinforced laminates and
found out low‐to‐high loading sequence is more damag-
ing than a high‐to‐low one and the Palmgren‐Miner lin-
ear damage rule may no longer be valid for this kind of
LIN ET AL.
material. Mohamadi et al15 found a relatively larger esti-
mation error (36.8%‐56.5%) of life prediction using Palm-
gren‐Miner rule in a 3‐stage variable amplitude cyclic
loading tests of FRP RC structure. Ray and Chandra
Kishen16 found a crack propagation rate acceleration in
concrete structure under overload. The above studies
have shown that the fatigue performance of materials or
structures under constant amplitude loads cannot be used
simply on that under variable loads. Furthermore, fatigue
performance could be different while simplifying random
loads as ladder loads in fatigue tests. Therefore, to discuss
the fatigue performance/durability of the RC bridge struc-
tures strengthened with FRP under vehicle random loads,
experimental studies on fatigue performance/durability of
the RC bridge structures strengthened with FRP under
vehicle random loads at room temperature were per-
formed by this research group.18 The results show that
the fatigue performance/durability of the RC beams
strengthened with FRP decrease obviously compared
with that under constant amplitude loads. Therefore,
vehicle random loads are one of the important issues
must be considered for antifatigue/durability design for
the RC bridge structures strengthened with FRP.
To prove the fatigue performance/durability of the RC
bridge structures strengthened with FRP under coupling
action of temperatures and vehicle random loads, in this
paper, vehicle random loading spectrum was simulated
and compiled, and fatigue testing method of bridge struc-
tures under coupling action of temperatures and vehicle
random loads was proposed. Experimental study of the
RC beams strengthened with CFRP with the above test-
ing method was performed. Fatigue/durability mecha-
nism of the strengthened RC beams under coupling
action of temperatures and vehicle random loads was
discussed, and two fatigue life prediction methods were
proposed.
2 | V E H I C L E R A N D O M LO A D IN G
SPECTRUM
To obtain a typical highway vehicle random loading spec-
trum, in this study, G321 national highway and one high-
way in Guangzhou were selected as objects, and the
traffic flow for 1 month was continuously collected
through manual survey, dynamic weighing, and vehicle
capture system. Power spectral density function and prob-
ability distribution function of the equivalent traffic flow
sequence were obtained through damage equivalence
and probability analysis method. Simulated spectrum of
the vehicle loads was obtained with distribution conver-
sion simulation method. Taking the typical superstruc-
ture of the bridge on the highway as an example, the