Experimental Study of the Bond Behaviour of Steel FRP-Concrete Joints and Shear Behavior of Concrete Beams Reinforced with GFRB Bars

The current research is mainly focused on the use of glass fiber reinforced polymer (GFRP) bars as internal reinforcement for simply supported concrete beams and the use of steel reinforced polymer (SRP) system externally for debonding and confinement investigation. Since GFRP and SRP are newly developed strengthening materials, a better understanding of the mechanical behaviour of these composite systems is needed. The objective of this research program is to investigate a number of issues related to GFRP bars, and SRP composite strips: 1) To investigate the shear strength of concrete beams reinforced with GFRP bars. 2) To investigate the debonding mechanism between SRP composites strips and the concrete surface, using two different set-up; concrete specimens were tested using the single-lap shear test set-up and specimens were tested using a three-point bending set-up, and compare the results obtained based on two different test set-ups. 3) To investigate the behavior of short concrete prisms with a square cross-section confined by SRP composite strips. A total of 96 concrete (beams, prisms) were tested in the course of this research; 14 as part of a shear strength of concrete beam reinforced with GFRP bar study, 7 as part of the debonding phenomenon study, 19 as part of the bond study, 31 as part of the fracture mechanics study and 25 as part of the confinement study.