PARAMETER STUDY ON STEEL PLATES REINFORCED BY CFRP PLATES WITH FINITE ELEMENT METHOD

The fatigue life of cracked steel plate can be significantly increased by external bonded CFRP plates. The influence parameters, such as the length, width, thickness, elastic modulus of CFRP, and the thickness, shear modulus of adhesive, on stress intensity factor( SIF) of fatigue crack front face were studied with finite element method( FEM). The results showed that increasing the thickness and elastic modulus of CFRP, using moderate thickness and shear modulus of adhesive led to good strengthening effect. Based on the FEM results, an empirical formula of SIF was suggested. The fatigue crack propagation predicted by the suggested empirical formula is found to have good agreement with experimental result,and can be usd to evaluate the fatigue life of cracked steel plate strengthened with CFRP plates.