Abstract: The bending behavior of the circular cross-section timber beam strengthened with a fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) sheet is investigated. The tight bonding is on the interface between the surface of a timber beam and the reinforcement layer of the FRP sheet. An analytical expression for the bending moment-curvature relation is presented, and its failure modes are analyzed. The governing equation for nonlinear small deflection of the FRP-strengthened circular timber beam is established, and the corresponding numerical method is given. The bending deformation of the simply-supported circular timber beam strengthened with the carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) sheet subject to a uniform load is studied numerically. The influence of the angle and thickness of the CFRP layer as well as the timber strength on the bending deflection of the FRPstrengthened circular timber beam is examined. It is revealed that, with the increases of the thickness and angle, the deflection of the CFRP-strengthened circular timber beam is decreased, and its carrying capacity and ductility are increased. However, when the angle of the layer reaches a certain value, the deflection will no longer decrease with the increase of the angle. At the same time, the nonlinear bending moment-curvature relation of the CFRP-strengthened circular timber beam is simplified as an approximate bilinear constitutive model. The approximate deflections of the simply-supported circular timber beam strengthened with the CFRP sheet are obtained. The results are compared with the linearly elastic bending and nonlinear bending models, showing that the mid-span deflections of a CFRP-strengthened circular timber beam with the approximate bilinear constitutive model are greater than those with the nonlinear constitutive model. The results of its stiffness analysis are on the safe side.

Key words: matrix differential equation of first order, circular cylindrical shell, high precision integration approach, constrained layer damping, fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) reinforcement, circular timber beam, nonlinear bending, bending moment-curvature relation, failure mode