“First lady of composites in Poland” – Prof. Renata Kotynia (https://p.lodz.pl/en/research/popularization-science/science-talkies/professor-renata-kotynia-first-lady-concrete-composites-lends-her-voice),

visited Institute of Structural Mechanics, FCE BUT Brno during August 17-18. Her visit has been realized under the project „Mobility of foreign researchers at BUT – RP 1.15“.

Renata Kotynia serves as full professor at Lodz University of Technology - Civil and Transport Engineering. Publications: 70 (7 books); H-index: 12; number of citations: 420.

Purpose of her visit was to discuss the future cooperation – she submitted already joint project with us this year (principal investigator prof. Novák) under research call of GACR – Leading Agency projects. During her visit she presented the lecture on the topic “Accuracy of existing theoretical models on the assessment of the design shear capacity of RC beams with steel and GFRP bars without stirrups”: The presentation was devoted to the shear of slender concrete beams without transversal reinforcement flexurally reinforced with two types of reinforcement: steel and GFRP (glass fiber reinforced polymer). The research program included 29 single-span, simply supported T-section beams (b = 400 mm, b_w = 150 mm, h_f = 60 mm, h_tot = 400 mm) with the axis span of 1800 mm. The three-point loaded beams (with the load located at a distance of 1100 mm from the support) had the shear span to depth ratio a/d in the range of 2.9-3.0 referring to the slender beams. The four times lower elasticity modulus of the GFRP reinforcement caused a mild, progressive shear tension failure mode, opposite to the abrupt failure mode peculiar to the RC beams. The difference in the elasticity modulus of both types of reinforcement resulted in the increase in the shear capacity of the RC beams in the range between 30% and 66% compared to the shear capacity of the GFRP reinforced beams with the same reinforcement ratio.