Method of Designing a Friction-Based Wedge Anchorage System for High-Strength CFRP Plates

The cables of high-strength carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) plates are starting to be applied to large spatial structures. However, their main anchorage systems rely on the adhesive force, which entails risks to their integrity resulting from aging of the binding agent. In this study, a friction-based wedge anchorage system was designed for CFRP plates. The working mechanism of the proposed anchorage system was explored both theoretically and experimentally. The anti-slip mechanism and condition of CFRP plates were formulated so that the equivalent frictional angle of the contact surface between a CFRP plate and wedges must not be smaller than the sum of the dip angle of the wedge external conical surface and the frictional angle between the wedges and barrel. An analysis of the stress distribution in the anchorage zone of the CFRP plate was conducted using the Tsai-Wu failure criterion, which concluded that the compressive stresses should be reduced on the section closer to the load-bearing end of the anchorage system. Furthermore, the anchorage efficiency coefficient was proposed, which depends on stress concentration coefficients, plate thickness, length of anchorage zone, dip angle of wedge external conical surface, and its frictional angle. Then, it was determined that the minimum length of an anchorage zone for the CFRP plates with various specifications should be at least 49 times larger than the CFRP thickness. A finite element analysis and static tensile tests on six specimens were carried out. The experimental results revealed that the anchorage efficiency coefficient of the optimized anchor reached 97.9%.