Generalized Evaluation of Bond Behavior of the Externally Bonded FRP Reinforcement to Concrete

Abstract

This paper presents a generalized evaluation method for determining the bond slip relationship of an external reinforcement bonded to concrete based on the experimental global force versus the displacement curve. The proposed method also provides several advantages, including predicting the global force versus displacement curve with any bond slip relationship, deriving the bond strength model, predicting the strain distribution along the fiber reinforced polymer (FRP)–concrete interface, and evaluating the effective bond length. An introductory example shows detailed implementation of the proposed method on an FRP–concrete interface reported in the literature. Since no prior assumption is made on the detailed configuration of the bond slip relationship using the proposed method, the obtained bond slip relationship can be seen more generalized and representative. The obtained bond slip relationship differs from the available bond slip models and leads to predictions that best approximate the experimental results. In addition, the reliability of the proposed method in determining the effective bond length is also verified against the experimental and analytical results.