Ductility of civil engineering structures incorporating fibre reinforced polymers (FRPs)

The special issue of the Construction and Building Materials journal has 14 papers covering a spectrum of studies from leading researchers the world over into the ductility characteristics of structural components or structures incorporating FRPs (fiber reinforced polymers). The opening paper, by Gunes considers the ductility of FRP-enhanced reinforced concrete (RC) structures in different contexts including energy dissipation in FRP RC systems under seismic loading, RC column wrapping and the resulting ductility enhancement due to concrete confinement, and FRP flexural strengthening of RC beams where compromises must be struck between strength and ductility. Tayeb and colleagues shift the emphasis to newbuild FRP structures, in this case a 300 m2 surface area gridshell to accommodate 500 people and made of pultruded glass FRP (GFRP) tubes. Sebastian and co-researchers discuss tests on two rectangular portal reinforced concrete frames.