HA3 – Diego Larra Espino

1.- Conversion factors

Enviromental influence:

• Thermal influence

In this example, service temperature can reach 45⁰C, and it’s Tg=85⁰C; which means that we
can use a factor of ηct=1 for SLS (Td = Tg - 40⁰C), while for ULS and stability it is fixed at 0.9.

• Moisture influence

This conversion factor is influenced by the location of the FRP depending how close or exposed
to moisture it is. In this situation we are designing a floor for a piere in the beach, which means
that the floor is going to have a continnuous exposure to the water aswell as reaching 30-40⁰C .

This means that the conversion factor applied is ηcm=0.7.

Long term influence:

• Influence of fatigue

In case the cycling loading factor was defined in this exaple and met one of these two
conditions:

- Total number of cycles due to cyclic load is over 5000

- Absolute maximum of the cyclic load leads to stresses more than 40% of the ul-mate
strength

Then we would consider a partial factor of ηcf=0.9. As if it not the case and the structure is
defined as a D1 type structure, the partial factor due to fatigue will take the value of 1.

• Influence of creep

To calculate the deflection of the beam, we have to account for the deformation (strains) due to
bending and deformation due to shear. This means that, the creep conversion factors for the axial
strain in the flanges and shear strains in the web will be different. For that reason, creep conversion
factor is calculated different for SLS and ULS.
The beam is made by E-Glass and polyester resin with a Vf of 45%. Taking on account the typical
values of fibre and resin densities, the density of the GFRP is:

Vf · 2570 + (1 – Vf) · 1200 = 1816.5 Kg/m³

The flanges are made of anisotropic symmetric laminate having the composition (0°/70%;
+45°/10%; 90°/10%; -45°/10%). The webs are made of anisotropic symmetric laminate having the
composition (0°/35%; +45°/25%; 90°/15%; -45°/25%). In that case we will consider the value of 70%
of UD applied in flanges and the values of 35% of UD for axial strength, 50% for shear strength and
15% for vertical loads, all these las three for webs.

Flanges:

δ = 70% Vf·γf/γGFRP = 0.445

ULS: ηcv.20 = 1/2-δ = 0.64

SLS: ηcv.20 = 1/2.3-2δ = 0.709

Webs (axial):

δ = 35% Vf·γf/γGFRP = 0.222

ULS: ηcv.20 = 1/2-δ = 0.5624

SLS: ηcv.20 = 1/2.3-2δ = 0.538

Webs (shear):

δ = 50% Vf·γf/γGFRP = 0.318

ULS: ηcv.20 = 1/2-δ = 0.594

SLS: ηcv.20 = 1/2.3-2δ = 0.6

Webs (vertical):

δ = 15% Vf·γf/γGFRP = 0.095

ULS: ηcv.20 = 1/2-δ = 0.525

SLS: ηcv.20 = 1/2.3-2δ = 0.474

The reference creep factors at 20 years are transformed to the period corresponding to the lifetime of
the structure (25 years). Four conversion factors are obtained, for longitudinal and shear strains in case
of ULS and SLS verifications.

tv = 25 ⋅ 365 ⋅ 24 = 219000

T = 0.253 ⋅ 0.141 ⋅ log (tv) = 0.19

Longitudinal (flanges):

- ηcv.x.f.ULS = 0.64ᵀ = 0.918

- ηcv.x.f.SLS = 0.709ᵀ = 0.936

Longitudinal (web):

- ηcv.x.f.ULS = 0.5624ᵀ = 0.896

- ηcv.x.f.ULS = 0.538ᵀ = 0.889

Shear (web):

- ηcv.x.f.ULS = 0.594ᵀ = 0.905

- ηcv.x.f.ULS = 0.6ᵀ = 0.907

Transverse (web):

- ηcv.x.f.ULS = 0.525ᵀ = 0.884

- ηcv.x.f.ULS = 0.474ᵀ = 0.867

2.- Partial factor

In this case, the Vx (variation coeficient) has a value of 0.17, which means that the structure has a partial
safety factor (γM2) of 1.6 ; 2 and 1.5 for ULS, SLS and stability respectively.

On the other side, for material properties derived from theorical models or values available in technical
literature, γM1 is 1.35 for ULS, global and local stability.