Study on Bending Creep Performance of GFRP-Reinforced PVC-Based Wood-Plastic Composite Panels

Wood-plastic composites (WPCs) are environment-friendly materials, which have broad application prospects in structures. They cannot be used for bearing structures because of poor mechanical performance and creep deformation. In order to enhance the mechanical behavior and decrease the long-term creep deformation, glass fiber reinforced plastics (GFRP) sheets and rebar reinforcement design methods are proposed. The bending static tests and creep performance tests of WPCs were conducted. The results showed that GFRP sheets and rebars improved the ultimate flexural loading capacity and deformation capacity by 257% and 165%, respectively, decreased the creep deflection effectively, and avoided shear failure. When the load level was very low, the creep deformation of WPC panels unreinforced, or reinforcement developed stably with time, and the damage did not occur within 1100 h. When the load increased to 80% of the ultimate load level, all specimens were damaged in the compression zone, the creep deformation increased quickly and unstably, bending shear failure of the unreinforced specimen occurred after 7 h, shear failure of the GFRP-sheets-reinforced specimen occurred after 1100 h, and the rebar-reinforced specimen failed after 720 h with excessive deflection deformation in the span. The reinforced effect of GFRP sheets is better. The creep strain growth rate of all specimens increased quickly at the first stage and gradually decreased at the second stage and tended to be stable. The creep calculation model was built based on the four-element model, which is simple and efficient and can make scientific and reasonable predictions of the two phases of structural transient creep and deceleration creep.