Pullout Behavior of GFRP Anti-Floating Anchor Based on the FBG Sensor Technology

Abstract

Building anti-floating anchors have been increasingly used in recent years, but conventional steel anchors under service conditions are easily subjected to chemical erosion. Glass fiber reinforcement polymer (GFRP) is a promising solution to this problem. In this study, field pullout tests were conducted on three full instrumented GFRP anti-floating anchors in weathered granite. Specifically, the GFRP anchors during pultrusion were innovatively embedded with bare fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensors to monitor the axial force distribution along depth. It was found that the embedded FBG could reliably monitor the axial force distribution of GFRP anchors. The ultimate pullout force of a GFRP anchor with diameter of 28 mm and anchorage length of 5 m was up to 400 kN. The GFRP anchor yielded at 0.8 m underground. Force distribution and field photos at failure indicated shear failure occurred at the anchor/bolt interface at the end of the tests. The feasibility of the GFRP anti-floating anchor was also verified in civil engineering. Finally, an elastic mechanical model and Mindlin’s displacement solution are used to get distribution functions of axial force and shear stress along the depth, and the results accord with the test results.