FRP or steel plate-to-concrete bonded joints: effect of test methods on experimental bond strength

The strengthening of reinforced concrete structures using externally bonded steel or advancedrnfibre reinforced plastic (FRP) composites is becoming increasingly common. A key factor affecting thernbehaviour and reliability of such strengthened structures is the bond strength between the steel or FRP platernand the concrete substrate. Several different experimental set-ups have previously been used to determinernbond strength. This paper presents a careful finite element analysis of the stress distributions in these testrnset-ups. Results show that stress distributions can be significantly different for different set-ups, for similarrnmaterials and geometry.