Prestressed glue laminated beams reinforced with steel plates : Comparison between prestressed, reinforced and non-reinforced glue laminated beams according to the Eurocode and the Swedish annex

Abstract: The paper presents details of a numerical analysis and simplified construction of strengthened glue laminated beams. Glue laminated beams are strengthened through the use of steel reinforcements embedded between the lamellas of the beams. The study compares the numerical results from reinforced and prestressed beams, simply reinforced beams and non-modified beams. Parametric studies were undertaken to evaluate the effects on reinforcement thickness, beam span, prestressing force and prestressing loss. Modified and prestressed beams with wide spans and large dimensions had a significantly higher design load compared to non-modified beams with similar geometry and span. In the most beneficial cases, a load increase of 438% was observed for point load at midspan and 346% for uniformly distributed load.