Quantitative evaluation of interfacial adhesion between steel reinforcements and self-compacting concretes, in steel/concrete composites, by indentation tests

Abstract

ABSTRACTTo ensure reinforced concrete bars applications in more severe loading conditions, the contact between the steel bar and concrete must be strongly adhesive. This adhesion constitutes an important property for the use of reinforced concrete. That is why many techniques were developed with the aim of determining this property. Adhesion can be easily found out by standard pull-out test machine. However, in this work, the adhesion was measured for the first time using Interfacial Indentation test. In this work, given the lack of results obtained using the interfacial indentation test in the literature so that we can compare our results with, the alone alternative found is to compare them with those of the pull out test. Using reinforcing bars, adhesion was measured using Self Compacting Concrete (SCC) and Normal Vibrated Concrete (NVC) specimens. The impact of water-to-binder ratio variations and concrete type on steel bar/concrete adhesion has been the incentive of the present study. As a main conclusion, interfacial indentation test can be more properly represent the actual steel/concrete interface adhesion compared to the pull-out test which is a more global test.