FRP-to-FRP bond characterization and force-based bond length model

Abstract

Fiber Reinforced Polymer (FRP) anchors are an effective method to increase the bond strength and/or ensure load path continuity between FRP materials and the concrete substrate when FRP materials are used as Externally Bonded Reinforcement (EBR) to strengthen and/or repair existing structures. While advances in developing a design methodology have been made on the fiber rupture and concrete cone failure modes for FRP anchors, the FRP-to-FRP bond behavior has received limited research attention. In an effort to develop design equations to calculate FRP-to-FRP bond capacity to be used by engineers, an extensive experimental program was undertaken to characterize the behavior of adhesively bonded FRP-to-FRP lap joints. Two force-based models to calculate the FRP-to-FRP bond capacity were proposed considering the influence of the critical bond length on lap joint behavior. A study to characterize the statistical properties of the experimental data was undertaken, and 95 and 99.87 percentile models were developed based on the statistical distribution of the experimental data set. Main conclusions inferred from the study and ideas for future work are also presented.