Study of glulam beams pre-stressed with pultruded GRP

Improvement of the load carrying capacity of glulam beams by the addition of reinforcement is now common practice. Recently it has been demonstrated that pre-stressing of beams using pultruded glass fibre reinforced plastic (GRP) tendons provides an available alternative due to the compatibility of the two materials and the low losses of pre-stress. This paper describes a finite element based model which was validated against test results and then used to investigate bond stress between a pre-stressed GRP tendon and the adjacent timber. Parametric studies were also undertaken to evaluate the effects of tendon thickness, beam span and the pre-tension force on the structural behaviour of beams.