Reinforcing strategies of CFRP plate for coped steel beams against local buckling

Coped steel beams have been commonly adopted in steel frame structure construction, but the existence of coped regions severely limits the ultimate load carrying capacity and will even lead to unfavorable failure modes. This paper aims to study the reinforcing strategies of carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) plates for coped steel beams against local web buckling. A total of four single coped steel beams with and without reinforced CFRP plates were fabricated and experimentally tested under different reinforcing strategies. Typical failure modes, the influence of CFRP plate layers, and pasting inclination angles were investigated and discussed. It has been found that the CFRP plate was efficient in improving ultimate load carrying capacities and prohibiting local web buckling of coped beams. The reinforcing effect was more prominent with more layers of CFRP plates, and CFRP plates with inclined pasting angles could also provide higher post-peak ductility compared to horizontal pasting. A finite element model was also established and validated against the experimental results. A subsequent parametric analysis was conducted to quantitively characterize the influence of various reinforcing strategies. The simplified calculation model was proposed based on the experimental and simulation results, which is hoped to provide further insights into the design of singled coped beams in practical engineering.