Thermal analysis on composite girder with hybrid GFRP-concrete deck

Since the coefficients of thermal expansion (CTE) between concrete and GFRP, steel and GFRP are quite different, GFRP laminates with different laminas stacking-sequence present different thermal behavior and currently there is no specification on mechanical properties of GFRP laminates, it is necessary to investigate the thermal influence on composite girder with stay-in-place (SIP) bridge deck at different levels and on different scales. This paper experimentally and theoretically investigated the CTE of GFRP at lamina's and laminate's level on micro-mechanics scales. The theoretical CTE values of laminas and laminates agreed well with test results, indicating that designers could obtain thermal properties of GFRP laminates with different lamina stacking-sequence through micro-mechanics methods. On the basis of the CTE tests and theoretical analysis, the thermal behaviors of composite girder with hybrid GFRP-concrete deck were studied numerically and theoretically on macro-mechanics scales. The theoretical results of concrete and steel components of composite girder agreed well with FE results, but the theoretical results of GFRP profiles were slightly larger than FE and tended to be conservative at a safety level.