Behaviour of fibre composite pile under axial compression load

Abstract

Fibre reinforced polymer (FRP) composite piles offer advantages compared to traditional pile materials since the latter materials have limited service life when used in marine environment. As a result, application of composite piles started to gain acceptance in pile rehabilitation and replacement. Apart from composite piles’ advantages, there is a need to assess its structural behaviour under different loading conditions. To perform this, the present paper experimentally and numerically investigates the behaviour of hollow FRP composite pile under axial compression. It was found that fibreglass-reinforced lamina bears 96% of the applied load while 4% was carried by Soric XF-reinforced lamina. Lateral strain of the plies remains the same across the thickness of the tube irrespective of the loading magnitude while axial strain variations on plies were developed at increasing applied load. Furthermore, the load-strain curves of the finite element model are in close agreement with the experimental results.