Experimental results of a national technical assessment procedure on commercial FRP for structural strengthening: wet-lay-up systems

Abstract

The paper shows the results of a large experimental activity for the qualification of wet-lay-up FRP products for structural repair and/or strengthening, required by the Italian national approval authority. The qualification procedure and the correspondent design rules are described in national guidelines. The analysis of the experimental results of a large number of qualification tests allows to highlight some aspects in the national procedure that could be addressed in a future revision of the guidelines. In particular, statistical analyses were carried out in order to assess the most suitable probabilistic models able to describe the experimental distribution of the tensile strength and the Young’s modulus of FRP wet-lay-up materials falling in the same class. The analyses were developed with reference to both ordinary and artificial environmental conditions. Nevertheless the paper is focussed on the case of wet-lay-up FRP materials, it can be considered exemplary of a problem common to other products.