Tensile Strength Characteristics of GFRP Bars in Concrete Beams with Work Cracks under Sustained Loading and Severe Environments

To investigate the effect of different environmental conditions of GFRP bars in concrete beams with work cracks subjected to sustained loads, the beams were exposed in indoor, freeze/thaw cycles and immersed in alkaline solution at elevated temperature. The bars were carefully extracted from the beams and tested in order to evaluate residual tensile properties. The results show that the tensile strength decreased significantly in the highly aggressive conditions but not in the natural conditions. The effect of GFRP bars casting in concrete beams demonstrated approximately 2.5% decrease of tensile strength caused by pore water environment in concrete beams on basis of those of the original bars. The effect of sustained loading plus work cracks demonstrated about 10.5% tensile strength decrease on basis of those of the bars only casted in concrete beams. The effect of environments under sustained loading plus work cracks demonstrated about 17% tensile strength decrease caused by a saturated solution of Ca（OH）2 and 60-2 ℃ tap water （pH=12-13） and about 8% tensile strength decrease caused by freezing and thawing cycle （F/T）, both on basis of those of the bars of the indoor beams only under sustained loading plus work cracks. The results demonstrate the effects of the tensile strengths under different environmental conditions of GFRP bars in concrete beams with work cracks subjected to sustained loads.

Analysis of the negative effects of groundwater exploitation on geological environment in Asia

This paper summarizes the negative effects on geological environment caused by groundwater exploitation and its distribution. There are seven main types of the geological environment negative effects, which are generally as follows:(1) Constant decrease of groundwater level is mainly distributed in China(East Asia), India(South Asia), Tajikistan(Central Asia) and Saudi Arabia(West Asia);(2) land subsidence occurs mainly in eastern plains of East Asia and west Siberian Plain of North Asia;(3) seawater intrusion occurs mainly in China, Japan and South Korea in East Asia, Philippines and Indonesia in Southeast Asia, the Indian coastal areas in South Asia;(4) groundwater level decline caused by groundwater exploitation in oil fields;(5) mining collapse is mainly in 50° to 70° north latitude band;(6) the total area of karst collapse in China of East Asia is as much as 197.05 km^2; and(7) ground fracture is mainly distributed in the North China Plain, Fenwei Plain and the Yangtze River Delta. Asia can be divided into 6 zones in terms of the geological environment negative effect caused by groundwater exploitation. According to analysis, with the increasing intensity of human activities, geological environment issues become more and more serious, therefore it is vital to control the human activities within the scope of 5× 10~5 people/km^2 to 9.9× 10~5 people/km^2 for the effective control of the size of the affected area by geological environment problems.