The Reinforcement of Concrete Structures with Advanced Composites

In the spring of 1995 the British Cement Association was asked by the Department of the Environment to set up an organisation to represent the interests of the whole concrete industry. The concrete industry really consists of many separate industries, making it difficult, if not impossible, to create an organisation which could represent the interests of all on every matter. Nevertheless, at a meeting of the main associations within the industry, it was agreed that there were issues common to the industry as a whole that would benefit from a consensus approach. The Concrete Industry Alliance (CIA) was therefore formed with 18 founder members; full membership has now risen to 26, and an associate-membership category created to permit academics and representatives of individual companies to participate in the alliaance. Professor G. Somerville

The construction and testing of three full-scale 13.2m-span stub-girders, designed to the appropriate British Standards and load tested at the University of Cambridge between 1986 and 1989, is discussed. These girders, which use Vierendeel action provide large rectangular web openings, utilise the concrete slab as the top chord to resist axial compression, a universal column section as the lower chord to resist axial tension and vertical shear forces, and several short ‘stub' lengths of the universal beam section as the lateral floor beams to provide horizontal shear connection between the two chords. All three tests resisted the required factored gravity loads. The first two tests were also designed to carry factored wind shear by providing continuity between the composite deck slab and the columns. The first test failed by the development of horizontal shear yield in the stub sections, the second by general yielding the universal column section bottom chord, and the third by longitudinal splitting of the deck slab over the outer stubs. R.E. McConnel and S.J. Hicks